About the Choir

The Mississauga Children's Choir is the city's premiere children's choir. Musical excellence and enrichment are the foundations of the Choir as we celebrate over twenty-five years of choral excellence and service to the community. We ensure that each child receives the best musical education and mentoring from our Music Director and staff.

The MCC is a treble-voiced choir of 140 boys and girls ages 6-17 years. The Choir includes three graded ensembles: Training (6-9 yrs), Intermediate (9-13 yrs), and Concert (13-17 yrs). The Choir is managed by a volunteer Board of Directors and parent volunteers.

The MCC is led by individuals whose collective experiences provide the choir with musical excellence and business acumen. Our leaders include individuals with vast musical experience, individuals whose children have experienced the positive effects of the choir and individuals who want to support its mission to provide a community service. The artistic and executive direction for the MCC remains strong, from inception to the current day. It is this continual development towards choral excellence that propels the choir to greater success.

Artistic Awards

2008 - runners-up, Ontario Provincial finals - Classes #13 & #15; Scholarship winners of Peel Music Festival

2007 -runners-up, Ontario Provincial Finals - Class #15; Scholarship Winners of Peel Music Festival.

2006 - semi-finalist in the CBC National Radio Choral Competition in the Children's Category.

2005 - Mississauga Arts Council Award for Established Performing Arts Group, which recognizes the significant contribution that the choir has made to the cultural life of Mississauga.

Activities

The MCC enjoys an exciting and demanding performance schedule. Some of our highlights include:

• Performances with the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra, the Mississauga Choral Society and Opera Mississauga;
• The Canadian Children's Dance Theatre and the Canadian Brass;
• Performances on CBC Radio & television, City TV and Rogers Television;
• Supporting charity events by performaing at the Easter Seals Telethon, World Vision, Trillium Health and Special Olympics;
• City of Mississauga events and performing for our Honorary Patron, the Mayor of Mississauga - Mayor Hazel McCallion

Recordings and Commissioned Music

Fall 2008 sees the release of MCC's second CD, Our Own Drum. It includes 15 selections commissioned by the Mississauga Children's Choir. This CD is the product of several years of rehearsals, concerts given in venues as far-flung from Mississauga as Vancouver and London, England, and recording sessions where the outside temperatures have ranged from -10C to +40C! Nevertheless, despite this rather exotic journey, our lives have been greatly enriched by the time we have spent together with this wonderful music. Our sincere hope is that your experience of these songs will be equally rewarding.

Sweet Songs of Christmas was the Choir's first professionally recorded CD which was released in the fall of 2003. Copies can be found in every library in Mississauga as well as in the National Library and Archives of Canada. The CD has received radio play on the CBC and local classical stations.

The MCC has commissioned music from many of Canada's leading composers including Stephen Chatman, Michael Coghlan, Srul Irving Glick, Ruth Watson-Henderson and Stephen Hatfield. The publication of these compositions has allowed children's choirs across North America access to this new music, thereby enriching the cultural climate in which we live. The Choir is proud to have given the world premiere performances of these new musical works when in concert at Mississauga's Living Arts Centre.

Touring and Festivals

Tours and festivals are important to the Choir as it gives us an opportunity to give back to our community and also provides the choristers with incredible opportunity to perform in front of large audiences and to perform with other choirs locally, nationally and internationally.

The MCC entered the international scene in 2003 when it represented Ontario at the world renowned Festival 500, held bi-annually in St. John's, Newfoundland. Forty choirs from all over the world attended the week long festival. In 2005, the Choir toured southern England, giving performances at prestigious venues such as St. George's Chapel - Windsor Castle, Salisbury Cathedral and Queen's College - Oxford. This past season (June 2007), the choir participated in the Coastal Sound International Choral Festival in Vancouver, BC. Summer 2009 will see the choir travelling to Austria to perform in music festivals in Salzburg and Vienna.

The MCC hosts the Mississauga Choral Festival biennially. Five choirs from Ontario and Alberta participated in the inaugural festival in 2004 with guest conductor Dr. Simon Carrington, Choral Director at Yale University. In 2006 the Festival took on an international flavour hosting five choirs from the United States and Ontario, under the direction of guest conductor, Dr. James Litton, Conductor of the American Boychoir. In 2008, Canadian Stephen Hatfield was our guest conductor which featured choirs from Ontario and New York State. Renown children's choral conductor will be our featured conductor at our fourth festival in 2010.