VOICE FACULTY
Denise Williams
BSc, MA, ARCT
Singer, Voice Teacher, Music Director, Producer
www.denisewilliamssoprano.com
Denise has been a private voice teacher for over going on 30 years and a national examiner and adjudicator for close to 15 years. Teaching and directing credits include founding Artistic Director of No Strings Theatre, teaching faculty with the Nathaniel Dett Chorale, assistant director for the RCM Repertory Chorus, workshop leader and camp director for CAMMAC. She is a member and adjudicator for the National Association for Teachers of Singing (NATS), the Ontario Registered Music Teachers Association (ORMTA), and the Royal College of Conservatory Examiners. Other professional memberships include, Canadian Actors Equity Association (CAEA), the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA), and Theatre Ontario.
As a performer, Denise is a versatile and accomplished singer who is equally at home on the concert, opera and Broadway stages. Highlights of her performance career include most recently in Toronto, the role of Monisha in the Nathaniel Dett Chorale’s concert performance of Treemonisha at Koerner Hall, the cast of Mirvish's North American Premier of The Sound of Music at the Princes of Wales Theatre, and other highlighted solo performances including African Sanctus with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Spirituals with Kathleen Battle and The Nathaniel Dett Chorale, Bess for Porgy and Bess excerpts with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and title role of the Canadian stage premiere Portia White-First You Dream. Her CD, Walk Together Children, is a cross-cultural initiative, featuring music from the roots of Black & Jewish music and has been aired on CBC’s Music Around Us.
Andrea McLean
Early Childhood Educator, Animator, Singer, Creative Writer
Aware that education is essential to social transformation, Andrea has spent many years working with young people in schools and community contexts. She spent four months in Haiti at the Centre for Learning, Training and Transformation (CAFT) working as a project coordinator for a learning process that uses alternative methods of discipline to motivate children in the classroom. Her work at the School of Nations in British Guyana involved training youth to serve as mentors to their younger peers. She has worked as a child and youth program coordinator for camps and conferences, a voice and dance teacher to young children, and as an early childhood educator. She is currently completing a diploma in Montessori Education - Early Childhood and working toward completing a Royal Conservatory of Music Associate Diploma (ARCT) in Singing.
Andrea McLean considers herself a student of her own craft. She studied music performance at the University of Waterloo and is currently studying with Denise Williams and Darryl Joseph-Dennie at Voices of Colour Music.
As a young student, Andrea’s performances include collaborations with various choirs and the most notable being the North York Festival Singers with conductor, masterclass teacher, and lecturer, Doreen Rao. Andrea has been a member of the University of Waterloo Chamber and University choirs, and the Common Thread Community Chorus as well as with the Edmonton, London and Toronto Baha'i choirs.
As a young adult, Andrea founded Nancy Campbell Academy Children's Theatre Workshop and coordinated and performed at Art and Soul fundraisers in partnership with the Steven Louis Foundation in London Ontario. She travelled throughout the north, central, and south Americas as a dance theatre performer and workshop facilitator contributing to social transformation and community development.
Andrea’s commitment to working with children is commendable. She sees creative and performing arts as fundamental to life. They are a gateway to knowledge of self, self-expression, and a vibrant community. She believes that each child has the capacity and potential to engage meaningfully through exposure to and acquisition of various art forms.
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Nicole Robinson
R&B, Rock, CCM
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