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

Chor Leoni debuted its exciting educational outreach program called PROMYS - PROgram for Mentoring Young Singers in 2005.

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. 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 email PROMYS [at] chorleoni.org. Register online here.

PROMYS 2008 members with Diane, on stage at Christ Church Cathedral (Vancouver) prior to the November 11 performance of Pity of War. Photo by William Ting.

PROMYS participants

2009
Graham Au-Lange (Burnaby Central Secondary), Dennis James Bastillo (St. Thomas Aquinas), Logan Drackett (Argyle Secondary), Daniel Gilmour (Argyle Secondary), Victor Hsu (R.E. Mountain Secondary), Thomas Lamont (New Westminster Secondary), Kevin Lin (Burnaby Central Secondary), John-Paul Radelet (Home School), Zainen Suzuki (Burnaby Central Secondary), Jun Qi (Jason) Wang (Prince of Wales Secondary), Aaron Wong (Magee Secondary), Cliff Wong (Windemere Secondary), Justin Woo (Eric Hamber Secondary)

2008
Douglas Au-Lange (Burnaby Secondary), Josh de Guzman (Eric Hamber Secondary), Thomas Lamont (New Westminster Secondary), Christopher Li (Eric Hamber Secondary), Ezra Park (Windemere Secondary), Zainen Suzuki (Burnaby Secondary School) ,Cliff Wong (Windemere Secondary), Edward Wong (Eric Hamber Secondary)

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.