- Conductor, Susan Chopp
- Susan was born in Toronto but was soon moved to Montreal where she lived for the next 40 years. She earned both a Bachelor of School Music and a Diploma of Music Education from McGill University. She worked at St. Patrick Elementary School and Darcy McGee Centre for the Fine and Performing Arts for the next 15 years. She also sang in the choir of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul under the direction of Wayne Riddell.
- The high points of her “Montreal Life” include having her school choirs sing with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, on The Telethon of Stars, recording a Christmas album and singing at City Hall for Mayor Drapeau and Ambassador Ken Taylor. With declining school enrolments in Quebec, she moved to Toronto in 1989 and taught music at Gordon A. Brown Middle School in East York and then in 2000 at Bessborough Drive Public School in Leaside. She conducted the East York Youth Choir for 3 years. In 1997, she earned a Master of Music from the University of Toronto. She has sung with the Mendelssohn Choir under the direction of Elmer Iseler and also the Oriana Women’s Choir directed by William Brown.
- After 32 years of teaching music, Susan retired but never stopped making music. She directed the Let There Be Music Community Choir in Etobicoke for many years and when that choir folded after COVID, she was asked to join the Toronto Choristers as both a chorister and as a co-conductor. She has loved making music with all of her choirs and looks forward to new adventures with the Toronto Choristers.
- To paraphrase and rewrite a bit of Shakespeare: “If music be the food of life…sing on, sing on”
- Conductor and Assistant Accompanist, Bill Price, Mus Bac, ARTC (Piano) ARCT (Voice)
- Member of the Toronto Choristers since 2013; Assistant Accompanist since 2016
- Supply classroom teacher and music specialist (K-12) for the TDSB and Peel Board.
- Baritone soloist for St. James United Church for 40 years. Choir member of Etobicoke Centennial Choir, Metropolitan Festival Choir, After Dinner Mints and formerly the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and Masterworks of Oakville Choir. Former Member of the American Boy Choir; sang at the opening of Lincoln Centre under Leonard Bernstein and sang at the White House when JFK was President.
- Principal Accompanist
- Margaret Harris Parsons, ARCT (piano) ARCT (Vocal)
- Member of The Toronto Choristers and accompanist since 2010. Principal Accompanist since 2014
- Taught in elementary schools, and accompanied many school and church choirs in Etobicoke. Active member of Royal Conservatory Board of Examiners for many years.
- Church soloist, and a member of Toronto Mendelssohn Choir for two decades under the direction of Elmer Iseler. Accompanied the Toronto Children’s Chorus, and the Etobicoke Youth Choir. She is in charge of the String and Vocal sections of the Davenport Festival of Music. Presently she teaches in her home studio and is a freelance accompanist. One of her vocal students won an RCM Silver Medal award. Marg is the glue that holds our choir together.
Accompanist Susan Byers