New Brunswick Youth Choir Performance

The New Brunswick Youth Choir is a four-day choral residency for singers between the ages of 16 and 24. It is an intensive weekend of training and education and a unique opportunity for singers from across New Brunswick to pursue excellence in choral music under the direction of a renowned conductor. It is an opportunity for like-minded students to meet and connect with one another and for students where music programming is less available to learn and interact with their peers.

François A. Ouimet is a very active Montreal-based conductor. He completed a Masters in Choral Conducting at Université de Montréal in 2000. He then went on to teach and conduct at Université de Sherbrooke, Université de Montréal, and conducted the choirs at McGill’s Schulich School of music from 2009 to 2015. Mr. Ouimet teaches at Vincent-d’Indy Music School, where he conducts multiple choral ensembles, from elementary to college level. He is Chorusmaster for the Orchestre Métropolitain, conducted by Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, since 2010. He has prepared this chorus for such works as Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St-Matthew Passion, Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, and Wagner’s Lohengrin. This last production won an Opus award for ‘Concert of the Year, Romantic music’. A versatile conductor, he is equally at ease in Renaissance, contemporary choral works, Jazz and Gospel. He has worked with many of the best Québec pop and jazz artists, providing singers and choral arrangements for Patrick Watson, Karen Young, les Soeurs Boulay, and Oscar-winning film composer Benoît Charest, who won a Félix for ‘Film soundtrack of the Year’ for Mars et Avril, which featured choral music prominently. He is musical director of les Voix Ferrées, widely considered to be one of the best, most original community choirs in the province.