Choral Canada announces competition winners

Part of the remit of Choral Canada, the national association for choral communities in Canada, is to encourage and support the composition of new choral works by Canadian composers. The organisation has recently made awards to two emerging composers, Nicholas Kelly and Mari Alice Conrad, as winners of the 2022 Competition for Choral Writing.

Nicholas Kelly receives the Diane Loomer Award, co-sponsored by Cypress Choral Music. Commended by the Vancouver Sun for his ‘sophisticated work of such immediate, glittery appeal’ and called ‘a rising star in the constellation of Canadian composers’ by Oregon Arts Watch, Kelly writes choral, wind ensemble, and chamber music infused with a sense of cinematic drama.

The winning composition, Wind Rising in the Alleys, will be published by Cypress Choral Music and performed by the 2022 National Youth Choir of Canada in May as part of the 2022 PODIUM Choral Conference and Festival.

Mari Alice Conrad is the recipient of the Stephen Chatman Student Award for her composition At First Light. She is an emerging, award-winning composer currently studying music composition at the University of Alberta. Mari Alice’s compositional practice ‘shines an exceptional light on the human condition and fosters curiosity, authenticity, connection, and collaboration’.

At First Light will be performed by the Exultate Chamber Singers, also during the 2022 PODIUM Choral Conference and Festival.