Today, I had the pleasure to spend a good part of the afternoon with the young singers and the apprentice pianist of our Ensemble Studio. As for the start of every new season each of them sang one aria for interested colleagues of the COC. They have been back from their summer holiday for ten days already and worked with Tim Noble and Margaret Singer and also started classes with the the great teacher Marlena Malas today.

As you may know our Ensemble Studio is open to Canadians only and we are proud to be the most important training program for young opera singers in this country. I must say we have a very impressive group of promising artists this year. The six members of our program who now start their second or third year with us have all worked very hard since I have first heard them a year ago and further improved over the summer. They are on a good track to be accomplished artists very soon.

All of the four singers who are new to the program, a soprano and a bass-baritone from British Columbia, a mezzo-soprano and a baritone from Ontario (plus a new apprentice pianist and a new apprentice director) bring remarkable talent to the program and I look forward to working with them.

There will be many possibilities to get to know our young artists in the course of the coming season. They will perform in our Free Concert Series at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre as well as in our mainstage productions and in a special performance of Mozart's Idomeneo on May 19th, 2010, which will showcase them for the first time ever in major roles on the stage of the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

Don't miss your chance.