NOTE: The 2011 Bel Canto voice competition has been cancelled.
Our next voice competition is coming in 2012. We'll keep you posted on the details here.

The Bel Canto Chorus Voice Competition

In 2009, The Bel Canto Chorus undertook the establishment of an annual voice competition as part of its mandate as a community based organization. The winner of the competition is a featured soloist at the annual Bel Canto spring concerts in May. To the current conductor, it seemed a natural expression of our community-mindedness to reach out to up-and-coming vocal artists to give them additional performance opportunities. The mutual benefits to the winner of the competition and to our loyal attendees seemed quite obvious: it would be the perfect pairing of new and rising talent with a very warm and welcoming audience.

For a first effort, the 2010 Competition was a resounding success. Several high calibre competitors presented a wonderful range of Mozart arias among other classical pieces. It was a superb Sunday afternoon for those audience members who came out to give moral support to the entrants. Our 2010 winner was soprano Justine Butkovich, who has completed her Masters Degree in Music Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Toronto. Her performance at the 2010 Bel Canto Spring concert beautifully highlighted her impressive vocal range, demonstrating why she was the winner of the competition.