PROgram for Mentoring Young Singers - Chor Leoni's PROMYS

The young men of PROMYS 2006 and Chor Leoni.
Chor Leoni and the young men of PROMYS during their October 2006 workshop. Photo by William Ting.

Chor Leoni's exciting educational outreach program called PROMYS - PROgram for Mentoring Young Singers - is now in its third season.

The concept was simple: invite four young, talented male singers from surrounding high schools to join with Chor Leoni in selected fall rehearsals, sing part of the Remembrance Day concert and then blog about their experience on our web site.

We hoped to:

  • attract talented singers before they disappeared into universities, Starbucks, their dad’s garage business, law school, and/or the hockey rink
  • give these students the opportunity to sing with a high quality men’s choir
  • ensure that singers are shown there are great opportunities for young men who want to continue in choral singing.

Hoping to garner perhaps four responses, we spread the word that any young man who sang in his high school choir was eligible to apply. In 2005 we had six talented young men from Vancouver and nine more from Victoria join us for rehearsals and our three Remembrance Day concerts that November. In 2006 we had twenty enthusiastic young singers join us, and in November 2007 we had eight eager PROMYS singers.

The program has succeeded far beyond our dreams. 'Promise’ implies hope, aspirations, expectation, trust, confidence, faith, and reliance. PROMYS delivered with great success and gave optimistic hope for our choral future and will be an annual feature of Chor Leoni’s Remembrance Day concerts.

If you have young men in your choirs who you think would be interested and benefit from participating in the PROMYS programme, please contact Diane Loomer at diane [at] chorleoni.org.

Download the application form for our Spring 2008 PROMYS workshop here.

photo of PROMYS 07 members at West Van United, Nov 11, 07.
Our November 2007 PROMYS members with Diane, on the risers before our November 11 performance of
HOPE at West Vancouver United Church. photo by William Ting.
PROMYS Participants

2007
Sky Kao (Burnaby Central Secondary School), Keith Sinclair (Capilano College), Edmund Natividad (Churchill
Secondary School), Harry Ahn and Robert Mackin-Lang (Collingwood Secondary School), Buddy Bailey and Jason Costa (Windermere Secondary School)
2006
Allan Chang, Corey Hollett, Noel Hollett, Woong Hee Lee, Max Liu, Jamie Turner, Mathew Cownden, Damon Guy, Justin Hamilton, Ben James-Groom, Chris Kilgore, David Monkman, Mark Russell, Jesse Setka, Clayton Sheldon, Cedric Spry, Toshi Uyeda, Brendan Walsh, Paul Winkelmans, Richard Zhou.

2005
Stephen Baker, Corey Hollett, Noel Hollett, Sean Jackman, David McHugh, Jamie Turner, Michael Allison, J.C. de Vos, Chris Kilgore, Jesse Lupini, Dan McPeake, Jesse Setka, Cedric Spry, Brendan Walsh, Paul Winkelmans.