ANDREA CIONA - Artistic Director

Andrea Ciona is a highly regarded conductor, performer, adjudicator, and educator. Having conducted and adjudicated ensembles around the world, Andrea’s highlights include conducting on the Great Wall of China, adjudicating in Jakarta, Indonesia, and leading a massed ensemble of 1,000+ performers at the Royal Nova Scotia Military Tattoo. Director of Choirs at Bishop Carroll High School in Calgary, Alberta, since 2010, her ensembles have received national and international recognition. Andrea is the founding director of the Rocky Mountain Symphony Chorus, and regularly performs with the Symphony. Currently on faculty at Mount Royal University Conservatory of Music, Andrea leads the Advanced Performance Program in Choral Conducting. Previously Andrea has served on faculty at Red Deer College School of Music and worked with Alberta Education on the Provincial Arts Education Curriculum Redesign. In her free time, Andrea loves traveling and exploring the world with her husband and two children.

Andrea holds degrees from the University of British Columbia (B. Mus, Performance & M. Mus, Choral Conducting) and the University of Calgary (B. Ed, Secondary Music).

Past Directors

DAVID WILSON - FOUNDER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 1995-2001

David Wilson founded the Spiritus Chamber Choir in 1995, and served as artistic director until 2001, when he left Calgary to pursue a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting at the University of Alberta. During his tenure with Spiritus, the choir received a 1999 International Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award for its performance of Anton Bruckner's Os Justifrom its inaugural CD, Crossing Bridges, and was a semi-finalist in the CBC National Choral Competition 2000. Spiritus released its second CD, Never the Same River Twice in 2001.

In 1999, Mr. Wilson received the Alberta Choral Federation's Con Spirito Award, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to choral music in Alberta. Now living in Edmonton, he is the conductor of the Edmonton Recorder Orchestra, and has been the Associate Conductor of both the Richard Eaton Singers and the Da Camera Singers. In addition to his busy Vocal and Breath Therapy studios, David is in constant demand as a singer, and vocal and choral clinician.

JANET YOUNGDAHL - ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 2002-2005

Soprano Janet Youngdahl is a specialist in early music for the voice, from the perspective of a solo singer, historian, and a choral conductor. She has toured with the ensemble for medieval music Sequentia throughout Europe and North America. She appears as a soloist on seven recordings with this ensemble with Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/BMG. In concert, she has appeared at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City, the Proms in London, the Melbourne Festival in Australia, and in concerts in Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, Cologne, Stockholm, San Francisco, Boston and Chicago. She is currently an assistant professor at the University of Lethbridge, teaching voice and conducting the University of Lethbridge Singers.

PIERRE SIMARD - ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 2005-2008

Acclaimed in Canada and internationally, Pierre Simard is a prominent conductor, composer and arranger. Formerly Artistic Director with the Vancouver Island Symphony (BC), and formerly Associate and Resident Conductor with both the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (AB) and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (BC), Pierre Simard’s artistry is versatile, compelling and nuanced, performing every masterwork with remarkable musicianship.

A guest conductor with major symphonies and ensembles in North America and Europe, Pierre Simard is invited with the Milwaukee Symphony (MI), for the Hot Springs Music Festival (AR), the Toronto Symphony, at the Ottawa’s Jazzfest with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, at Lanaudière’s International Music Festival, and with symphony orchestras in Edmonton, Victoria, Kingston, Hamilton, Okanagan, Trois-Rivières, Québec’s Les Violons du Roy and Montréal’s Orchestre Métropolitain. He is a former Artistic and Music Director with the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville (QC).

Pierre Simard guest conducts performances with virtuosi and solo artists of all genres, notably trumpet legend Chris Botti, singers Colin James, Chantal Kreviazuk and Nikki Yanofsky, Cirque du Soleil acts as well as classical stars such as Jan Lisiecki, Angela Cheng, Benjamin Grosvenor and other accomplished international soloists.

Amongst many distinctions in Canada and the United States, Pierre Simard was granted an Award in Orchestral Conducting from the Canada Council for the Arts, two Opus Prizes from the Quebec Council of Music, and many prizes recognizing his outstanding artistic contribution. Pierre Simard holds a Master’s Degree from Johns Hopkins University's Peabody Institute in Baltimore (MD) and five prizes from Montréal’s Conservatory of Music. In 2021, he joins Denys Bouliane's class at McGill University, undertaking a doctoral degree in Music Composition.

Pierre Simard’s warm personality on and off stage combined with his unwavering commitment to music performance have drawn concertgoers of all generations to celebrate a large and diversified repertoire.

TIMOTHY SHANTZ - ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 2009-2019

Timothy Shantz is an experienced conductor, collaborator, and tenor soloist. As a conductor, Shantz is recognized for his work in early-music, contemporary works, as well as virtuoso unaccompanied choral music to large choral-orchestral masterpieces. Under his direction, Spiritus Chamber Choir earned the Healey Willan Grand Prize from the Canada Council in 2013 and toured internationally, earning second prize at the Fleischmann International Choral Competition in Cork, Ireland as well as second prize at the Florilège Vocal de Tours in France. His preparation of choruses for major orchestral works has been equally successful. Following a performance of Beethoven’s Mass in C, DeLong wrote, “the well-prepared chorus (was) thrilling in the grand climaxes and sensitive in the softer Sanctus and Agnus Dei portions of the mass. The big fugal choruses always are a big sing for any choral group, and the CPO Chorus tucked into these most characteristic passages with relish. One could not help noticing the security of both the tenor and bass sections, and the way this contributed to the health of the total choral sound.” Shantz has collaborated with conductors Christoph König, Matthew Halls, Paul Hillier, Nicholas McGegan, Roberto Minczuk, John Morris Russell, Yoav Talmi, Jean-Marie Zeitouni and more.

Shantz has several recordings to his name including, Zachary Wadsworth’s The Far West released in May 2016 of which Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote “beautifully sung, as everything here is, by the aptly named Luminous Voices under Timothy Shantz.” Mendelssohn’s Te Deum, released in Spring 2015 by Luminous Voices was named Outstanding Choral Recording from Choral Canada in May 2016. Other recordings include, James MacMillan's Seven Last Words (Spring 2014) with Spiritus Chamber Choir and future releases planned from the Calgary Philharmonic Chorus and Luminous Voices. Performance highlights as tenor include Händel's Messiah at Carnegie Hall, soloist and ensemble singer at the Carmel Bach Festival since 2008 and twice with the Lucerne Festival Academy under Pierre Boulez. Shantz holds a Doctor of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Indiana University Jacobs School of Music with a dissertation analyzing the unaccompanied choral work Sun-Dogs by composer James MacMillan.

Dr. Mark Bartel, Artistic Director - 2020–2022

Mark Bartel is in demand as a versatile conductor, collaborator, and educator. A native of Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON, his career has taken him to several cities in the United States and Canada. After a sixteen-year tenure in the United States, he returned to Canada in 2019 to join the faculty at Ambrose University (Calgary, AB) as Associate Professor of Music.  

He has held teaching positions at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY; the University of Western Ontario, London, ON; and Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, MB. In addition to choral ensembles, Dr. Bartel teaches in the areas of conducting, choral pedagogy, applied voice, music history and sacred music. His doctoral research centred upon Baroque musical-rhetorical thought and performance in the choral music of Bohemian composer, Jan Dismas Zelenka. His current research focuses on choirs engaged in active peace-building through the choral experience. 

From 2005–2019, he served as Director of Choral Music at Friends University in Wichita, KS. While in Kansas, he was Artistic Director of the Wichita Community Children’s Choir and the Wichita Chamber Chorale as well as President of the Kansas Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. He led his choirs on tours throughout the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, and Costa Rica, and most recently conducted in Vienna with Mid-America Productions and the Symphonisches Orchester Wien.    

Dr. Bartel is sought after as a clinician, presentor, and adjudicator. He is a frequent guest conductor for honour choirs and festivals for singers of all ages, with upcoming engagements in Texas and Kansas. A graduate of the University of Winnipeg and Canadian Mennonite University, he holds the Master of Music and Master of Sacred Music degrees from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY.