PMP is pleased to welcome Karen Newhook-MacDonald as our folk song clinician.
Originally from St. John’s NL, folk songs are an invaluable foundation to Karen’s highly successful career as music educator and choral specialist. Karen was immersed in the culture of folk song singing and spent many years performing Folk Songs in The St. John’s Kiwanis Music Festival and professional dinner theatre companies in both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and has also performed at the East Coast Music Awards.
Karen holds a Bachelor of Music Education from Dalhousie University, with a major in voice, as well as a Master of Education from Saint Mary’s University.
Karen is a music educator and choral director with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education and currently teaches at Harry R. Hamilton School in addition to being a choral specialist with Halifax Regional Arts. Karen is the founder and current director of the Cantatrice Ensemble Girls’ Honour Choir and the Harry R. Hamilton School Choir, and has also conducted the Vocala Honour Choir for twenty years. Choirs under her direction have performed at various events locally, nationally and internationally, including performances at Carnegie Hall, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Disney World.
Karen is busy as a music clinician and adjudicator, having presented for the Atlantic Festival of Music, Nova Scotia Music Educators’ Association, New Brunswick District Music Educators, Nova Scotia Choral Federation, Kodaly Society of Nova Scotia, PEI Music Educators’ Association, Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, Nova Scotia Department of Education and Halifax Regional School Board. Karen has extensive experience in making music with young people at the regional and national level. She has been involved with many vocal projects of the Nova Scotia Choral Federation, including Junior Choir Camp, Children’s Chorus of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Youth Choir, National Youth Choir and Juvenata.
She and her husband Mike, also a music educator and choral director, are the proud parents of Cantatrice alumni Taylor and Lauryn MacDonald.
PMP is pleased to welcome Victoria Fuller as our pop song clinician.
Victoria Fuller is a Toronto-based artist and educator who hails from Newfoundland. Victoria moved to Toronto to pursue studies at the Randolph College for the Performing Arts. Upon graduation, Victoria studied at Glasgow’s prestigious Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, where she received her M.A. in Musical Theatre Performance.
When she returned to Canada, she realized that her passion lay not only in performing, directing, and teaching theatre, but also in songwriting. Victoria has performed as a vocalist throughout Canada and the UK. She recently released her debut EP with her alternative folk band ‘June the Destroyer.’
Victoria has been teaching songwriting, vocals, and acting to children and adults for more than a decade. She currently runs her own program, Little Red Theatre, for children of all ages. She is the music instructor at the P.A.C.E. Academy for Gifted Children, as well as several schools throughout the TDSB, and is a guest instructor at her alma mater, Randolph College for the Performing Arts: Randolph Kids Performing Arts.
Victoria is the proud founder and Artistic Director of Echo Productions. She has directed over a dozen shows during the company’s 10 year history in Toronto, including: Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange (The Tarragon Theatre), Dog Sees God (Second City John Candybox Theatre), Bonnie & Clyde (Factory Theatre), and Charlie: Son of Man (Walmer Theatre). Both Bonnie & Clyde and Charlie: Son of Man were awarded federal Presentation Series grants and were remounted in St. John’s at the Resource Centre for the Arts in 2016 and 2019, respectively. For Charlie: Son of Man, Victoria was also a nominee for Outstanding Direction at the 2018 My Entertainment World Awards. Context was selected for presentation in the Rendezvous with Madness festival in Toronto.
PMP is pleased to welcome Natalie Pratt as our classical concert clinician.
Natalie Pratt has been praised for her “effervescent voice”, and has distinguished herself as a soprano with an extensive and diverse repertoire. Canadian born soprano, Ms. Pratt is a graduate of Western University’s faculty of music, where she received her Masters of Music- Vocal Literature and Performance degree. While there, she gained prestige for such roles as Lauretta in Puccini‘s Gianni Schicchi, and Aline in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Sorcerer.
Professional engagements, across Canada and Europe, have included Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zuberflote, Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Susanna in Mozart’s Le Nozze Di Figaro, Despina in Mozart’s Cosi fan Tutte, Musetta in Puccini’s La Boheme, Tosca in Puccini’s Tosca, Cio-Cio San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust, Laetitia in Menotti’s The Old Maid And The Thief, Cunegonde in Bernstein’s Candide, and Maria in Bernstein’s West Side Story.
As an engaging and seasoned concert singer, her repertoire includes Bach’s St. John Passion; Handel’s Messiah; Mozart’s Requiem, Mass in
C+, Exsultate jubilate; Mendelssohn’s Hear My Prayer; Orff’s Carmina Burana; Canteloube’s Chants d’Auvergne; lieder of Schubert and Schumann; songs of Faure, Hahn, and Obradors.