ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Marion Samuel-Stevens is serving as our Interim Artistic Director.
CHAMBER CHOIR CONDUCTOR – EMILY PETRENKO
Born in London, Ontario, Emily started piano lessons and singing in choir at the age of three. She grew up playing wind and percussion instruments in concert bands, jazz groups, and percussion ensembles, and rapidly developed a love of music. Emily earned an Associate Performer’s Diploma through Conservatory Canada (piano), a Bachelor of Music (piano and voice) and Chamber Music Diploma from Wilfrid Laurier University, as well as a Bachelor of Education and a Master of Music in Literature and Performance (solo piano) from the University of Western Ontario.
In her early career, Emily taught private lessons in piano, voice, and theory. She adjudicated at many music festivals, developed workshops for Conservatory Canada, and presented them to music teachers across Canada. Emily established programs like the Elora Youth Singers and the Elora Festival Kids Camp—a program she ran for 14 summers during which children performed a musical after only five days of rehearsals. For several years, Emily was the Music Director for the Centre Wellington Singers and was the Artistic Director of the Mississauga Children’s Choir.
For more than two decades, Emily sang with the professional Parish Choir of St. John the Evangelist in Elora, and participated in numerous recordings on the Naxos and independent labels. She directed St. John’s Volunteer Choir for 11 years and their Youth Choir for 18 years. As a qualified educator and member of the Ontario College of Teachers, Emily has a vast range of experience teaching instrumental music, vocal music, guitar, and elementary music in public and private schools. Emily is currently a teacher with the Upper Grand District School Board at
École King George Public School in Guelph and is proud to be a Google Certified Educator. In addition to her day job, Emily is a member of the College of Examiners of the Royal Conservatory of Music, and currently serves as an online and in-person examiner. At home, Emily enjoys life with her husband Jurgen on a 24-acre hobby farm near Elora. They reap the benefits of an organic life tending to their gardens, two dogs, two horses, twenty-four chickens (including Fabio, the rooster), and approximately two million honeybees.
Emily is thrilled to join the Guelph Youth Singers’ team this season!
JUNIOR CHOIRS CONDUCTOR & PERFORMANCE TROUPE COACH – MARION SAMUEL-STEVENS
Canadian Soprano, Marion Samuel-Stevens, has been described as an engaging, direct performer and actress. Her performances range from the intimacy of recitals to the grandeur of opera. Marion has been the Ontario winner of the NATS Artist Awards competition and second runner up in the regional NATSAA competition in Indiana, where her voice was described as “beautiful and rich with evenness and colour throughout“. She was also a semi-finalist in the prestigious Eckhardt-Grammatté competition which gives special attention to new Canadian music. In both competitions Marion showed her well-developed ability to switch between a wide variety of vocal and dramatic styles with efficiency and finesse.
Marion has performed across Canada and the United States and Europe. She is a graduate from the University of Toronto’s Voice Performance program where she also participated in the prestigious Opera Undergraduate program. As well as studies at Wilfrid Laurier University she has attended many prestigious enrichment programs across North America and Europe where she had the pleasure of studying with many acclaimed international musicians including Elly Ameling, Rudolph Jansen, and Martin Katz.
Marion is an adjunct professor of Voice at the University of Guelph where she is active in creating a new program for contemporary music. She also maintains a private studio, with students going on to careers as classical soloists, musical theatre performers, music therapists, actors and teachers. She is the director of the Guelph Youth Singers Musical Theatre Summer Camps and has been the director of the operetta camp at the Southern Ontario Suzuki Institute (SOSI) since 2018. She also serves as the conductor of the Guelph Youth Singers Junior Choirs and has conducted several ensembles in the Guelph and surrounding area. Described as “intelligent, relatable, and engaging” she is sought after as a clinician and adjudicator.
Marion has sung in choirs since the age of 8, including the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus with John Tuttle, the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir with Robert Cooper, the Ontario Youth Choir with Lee Willingham, Deral Johnson and Elmer Eisler, and professionally in the Nathaniel Dett Choral, the Elora Festival Singers, Mississauga Choral Society, Arcady, the Boris Brott Festival Choir, and the Guelph Chamber Choir.
An avid supporter of new music, she has had the pleasure of debuting several works by Canadian composer, Peter Skoggard, as well as performing works by Ronald A. Beckett, Jake Heggie, Ricky Ian Gordon, and John Harbison all under the guidance of the composers themselves. Her unique approach to poetry and ability to interpret challenging works with ease has also allowed her to perform in the Bohlen-Pierce scale. Of her portrayal in Ronald A. Beckett’s Ruth, “Marion Samuel-Stevens was outstanding in the title role. Her warm, full voice floated across the registers, especially to some silvery, shiver producing high notes. I found I was keenly looking forward to her next solo moment.” – Murray Charters
Equally comfortable on the operatic and concert stage, Marion is sought after for her subtle interpretations of text and character, as much as for her warm, supple, and luminous voice.
Focusing her continuing education on the ever-changing field of vocal pedagogy and health, Marion has attended the Commercial and Contemporary Music Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah University as well as completing certification in Vocal Health First Aid and Vocal Habilitation through Vocal Health Education in the UK. Marion is currently completing her Master’s in Vocal Pedagogy from the University of Wales (Voice Study Centre) where her area of focus is the athleticism of singers as well as the parallels between athletic and vocal coaching. She plans to write a handbook on coaching techniques for music instructors, highlighting the most effective ways to intrinsically motivate students.
As a conductor, Marion’s goals are to create a challenging and supportive environment in which students can find their own unique voice as well as explore different vocal colours and their impact on a choral sound. Combining excellence in performance and healthy singing she motivates choristers to work hard while creating community and learning.
COLLABORATIVE PIANIST & ASSISTANT CONDUCTOR – DERICA SCOTT
Derica Scott is an accomplished pianist currently studying at Wilfrid Laurier University in the history, critical analysis, and theory department. She has a decade of experience teaching piano and voice of all ages and styles. Her most recent accomplishments are her accolades in both Royal Conservatory performance and theory exams and one-on-one work with vocalists through the NATS vocal competition and university juries. As an alumnus of GYS, it is her pleasure to be able to work with the choir as a collaborative pianist.
CHOIRS I & II ASSISTANT DIRECTOR – LAURA FLEMING
Laura Fleming is a grade twelve student at John F. Ross CVI. She has been a GYS chorister since the age of six. She has enjoyed assisting with the musical theatre summer camps over the past three years. Laura is thrilled to be on staff as the Choir I and II Assistant Director. Marion Samuel-Stevens is Laura’s vocal coach and she studies cello with Andrea Cook. Laura has played cello since the age of four, and is a member of the most senior ensembles at the Suzuki String School of Guelph. Laura has been involved in a variety of productions with the ensemble Arcady, in Brantford, for as long as she can remember. Laura has competed in the Kiwanis Music Festival for many years and has sung at the OMFA Provincials three times, earning an honourable mention in 2019. She is currently serving as a choral scholar at St. Georges Anglican Church, and is hoping to pursue a career in Music and Drama.