TWO PART WORKSHOP: Pop-Up Choir

Do you love to sing pop songs? We’ll assemble high, medium, and low voice parts of well-known and loved contemporary tunes to sing quick and satisfying arrangements. Everyone always gets a turn on the melody. The Pop-Up Choir format is accessible to new and experienced singers and no music reading is necessary.

SINGLE SESSION WORKSHOP: Circle Singing and Vocal Improv

Let’s get creative and make our own music in the moment! We’ll explore the building blocks of music (groove, bass line, melody, harmony) vocally to develop collaborative vocal improvisations in any number of styles. We will use structured improv exercises and games to “play in the soundbox” with our voices, and to work on deep listening, sensing, leading, and following.

Wendy Nixon Stothert, B.Ed, M.EdL, began playing piano and singing at age 6 and was hooked on Music study from then on. She is currently the choral conductor for 7 different adult community choirs in the Comox Valley, including the three Just in Time Choirs, the Canadian Military Wives Choir – Comox, the Berwick Choir, the CV Pop-Up Choir, and her latest project, the drop-in, non-performing Resonation Good Vibes Song Circle. Wendy taught K-12 Music, Band and Choir in the area for over 15 years. As a performer, you can hear Wendy sing as a soloist and with her 80’s cover band, Ricochet! Wendy spearheads Choral Valley, www.choralvalley.ca, a project that aims to help singers and choirs grow through Workshop offerings.

A life-long learner at heart, Wendy completed her Masters of Educational Leadership degree at Vancouver Island University in 2012, being awarded the Governor General’s Gold Medal for academic achievement. Wendy’s Masters degree inquiry centered on Music Performance Anxiety in choral singers. She has been a Finalist in the Local Hero Award – Community Builder category and was the Arts Ambassador Winner in 2022. Aside from spending quality time with her family, facilitating rewarding singing experiences with people to help spread positivity and connection in community through music is one of her greatest joys.

TWO PART WORKSHOP: Songs for Living Together

Humans have used songs to survive, to thrive and to sustain us through grief and pain. We will learn songs for growing, loving, working, just hanging out, making change, and sustaining our spirits thru this era. The right song can keep our sense of humour alive – essential for these times! We’ll learn tunes to take home to share with your communities, to bring song and ritual back in to life at work and home and the world.

SINGLE SESSION WORKSHOP: Yummy Pocket Songs

Have you ever wanted songs that you can just pull out and share with friends at the park, or around the table, or out on the street? We’ll learn cool layer-songs, grooves, rounds, chants and little quickies you can enjoy with your communities. There’s a song for every occasion! We’ll sing a pocket-full!

Patti grew up with a significant stutter, which made speaking up in public a difficult experience. However, there was no difficulty in singing – a liberating revelation. This liberation brings joy and belonging with it, and she believes everyone has a right to this, as part of being human. If you have a pulse, and breathe (even if only occasionally!), she knows singing is for YOU.

A graduate of the Community Choir Leadership Training program in Victoria, Patti has been bringing the joy of singing to many ordinary folks through her four community choirs since 2006. Her charisma, natural high energy leadership skills and warm personality bring an atmosphere of cheerful community spirit to the choirs. She leads 3 community choirs in the greater Vancouver area, and solos and conducts for the popular City Soul Choir, under the direction of Karla Mundy. wPlus, she plays great party guitar!

BONUS WORKSHOP (Friday 4:30pm): Harmony for Popular Hits

Want some ideas for harmony lines to songs by John Prine, Van Morrison, Johnny Cash and beyond? Let’s explore lots of favourite choruses and create different harmony parts.

TWO PART WORKSHOP: 3-Part Harmony Bluegrass Style

This rewarding 3-part harmony singing workshop teaches singers how to establish predictability and offers a shared dialogue. It guides 3-part harmony singers in maintaining a consistent harmony that aligns positionally with the melody, facilitating by ear the creation of instant three-part harmony. The workshop focuses on helping individuals distinguish between folk harmony and organized harmony, resulting in lush, 3-part arrangements without the need for an arranger.

Jenny Lester is a dynamic Canadian Bluegrass performer and recording artist who has established herself as an important singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Her original songs are carefully crafted in the bluegrass convention while at the same time displaying a contemporary freshness and vitality that breathes new life into the fabled “high lonesome” sound. Jenny is a veteran stage performer, beginning on the fiddle at age eight with her family’s Driftwood Canyon Family Band out of Smithers, BC.

TWO PART WORKSHOP: There’s no business like show business!

Our musical theatre workshop will feature singing, acting and some movement. You need a creative mind (silliness encouraged) and all skill levels are welcome to
participate. We will also have rhythm and some singing games and just general tomfoolery so you can be comfortable entertaining the masses!​

Sharon’s formal training is anchored with a M Div (Lutheran Seminary) and ARCT (voice/piano).

She has performed at Rainbow Stage and Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg, Minneapolis, San Diego, California and Miami, Florida. Sharon has taught musical theatre for 25 years at Creative Roots in Smithers and has had many students continue their careers nationally and internationally. She loves to sing, act and dance which is the perfect combination to offer the Festival of Voices workshop. She was able to bring a group of choristers to perform at Carnegie Hall, NYC in 2018. She was a BCCF director for North Western BC and has sat on the Festival of Voices executive since its inception. Sharon is dark chocolate with a nibble of chilli… Know her for her open-mouthed hilarity and sanguine spirit.

She continues to operate her studio as she has for the past 57 years.