Concert Choir Trip to Toronto with the Bach Children’s Chorus 2026

Day 1:  Exploring Toronto.  A full day in downtown Toronto today being tourists!  Our day included the amazing aquarium, CN Tower, shopping and lunch at Eaton Centre, dinner out with the BCC, then a Broadway style show that evening!

 Day 2: University of Toronto.  We visited a gorgeous student art exhibit on sustainability, saw rare books from the 1700s (and an early original Dickens play and a 1831 illustrated copy of Frankenstein), toured the sights and checked out the amazing scores at the Music Building. We even got to hear a string quartet while we ate our lunch.

We then joined U of T professor Zimfira Poloz in her Vocal Pedagogy for Young Choirs class. We were the "lab choir" as she showed us some wonderful techniques and visual representations.  Then we traipsed down the end of Philosopher’s Walk to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM).   Ancient cultures, dinosaurs, mummies, natural history—it would have taken days to explore but we really enjoyed it. 

Then it was back on the train through the mist of the lake to Scarborough to meet BCC for our first rehearsal together. Thank you to Megan, Liz, Larissa, Josh, Meredith, and Nick for being such amazing hosts for us at your rehearsal venue! They had name tags, snacks, games, and a great rehearsal ready for us. Then we took over the private back room at the Old Stone Cottage Pub for our joint dinner—sitting next to new friends and getting to know the BCC crew.

Day 3: Ontario Treble Choirs Festival!   The church in Islington is gorgeous, and we enjoyed the expert leadership of Julia Davids, and getting to meet, play games with, and sing with the other choirs from around Ontario. We just shared a part of our song "Tarry" in the sharing session for three other choirs and had such fun. That evening we had a fantastic massed choir concert. It was great to receive direct feedback on the VCC choir sound from clinician Julia Davids, hear kind and constructive feedback from our peer choirs, as well as practice analysing other choirs' sounds and giving them praise and possible areas to look at. It's a treat to hear other choirs' repertoire and get inspired from the way they do things. 

Day 4:  Concert with the BCC   We all gathered Sunday morning at the SBUC sanctuaryin Scarborough for a pre-show rehearsal. Applying Julia and other choirs' feedback and looking at sections made each piece sound different from the day before, which was amazing in such a short time. Thank you to BCC for amazing snacks yet again, and we had a wonderful concert with much socializing, exchanging contact info, and merriment (and even more singing) in the lobby afterwards.  BCC recorded the whole concert from the loft in the church, and Kim brought her portable recorder, so we'll patch those together and come up with a video with good audio. 

Day 5: Niagara Falls!  We had incredible weather for our day trip to Niagara Falls today. We all enjoyed the stunning falls filled with icebergs, seeing more of the region, hearing Megan's amazing facts, and all of the Clifton Hill mayhem and carnival vibes. So many smiles today, and it was great to be joined by about half the BCC gang.  Time to say good bye for now as we fly home to Victoria early tomorrow morning.  But we will see all our BCC friends in Victoria when they come May 13-19 for the second half of our exchange and the PODIUM National Choral Conference and Festival.

We had such a wonderful time and are so appreciative of the Toronto Bach Children's Chorus and Experience Canada! Thank you to everyone involved!