Music has been an integral part of the worship and ministry of St. Andrew’s Church throughout its long history. Dan Bickle, Director of Music at St. Andrew’s, along with playing the organ at Sunday Service, directs both the eight-member professional Choir and the St. Andrew’s Choristers. Daniel holds an undergraduate degree in Music Education from the University of Toronto where he studied organ with Douglas Bodle, Music Director Emeritus at St. Andrew’s Church. He also has a graduate degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Illinois.
The Gallery Choir:
The members of the Gallery Choir are all trained as professional singers, some of whom work full-time in music.
Allison Angelo
Soprano Allison Angelo began singing at St. Andrew’s while she was a student of Douglas Bodle’s at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. She is now an 18-year veteran of the choir, but is still technically one of the newbies, as half the choir has been here longer than she has. It’s just that kind of choir – no one wants to leave! Allison has also been involved with Music at St. Andrew’s and the St Andrew’s Refugee Committee.
Professionally, Allison’s passion for singing has taken her across Canada, singing for many of Canada’s orchestras including the symphonies of Toronto, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Kingston and Victoria as well as Symphony Nova Scotia and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. She has appeared on stage with l’Opéra de Montréal, the Boston Pops, the Tanglewood Festival, Toronto Operetta Theatre, the Luminato Festival, the Mountain View Connection Concert Series, Off-Centre Music Salon, Cecilia Concerts, the Elmer Iseler Singers, and the Elora Festival. Her debut recording, Moon Loves Its Light, received an ECMA nomination for Best Classical Recording in 2017.
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Bradley Christensen enjoys a busy multi-faceted career as a baritone, voice teacher, and guest clinician, and has continued to earn praise for his “most well-rounded instrument … focused, rich, and sympathetically communicative” (Natasha Gauthier, Ottawa Citizen). He holds four degrees: a BMUS (Hons) in Vocal Performance and a BA in Italian, both from the University of Auckland, and a MMus and a DMA in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Toronto. In 2016, he was invited by The Royal Conservatory of Toronto to hold one of seven positions in its prestigious Rebanks Family Fellowship and International Performance Residency Program. He also furthered his development as a young artist with Opera on the Avalon, Highlands Opera Studio, and Opera North.
Bradley has had the pleasure of working with many arts organizations across Canada and internationally through the realms of opera, operetta, oratorio, chamber music, song recitals, and musical theater. Recent performance highlights include appearances with: Canadian Opera Company Concert Series, Cultureland Opera Collective, Confluence Concerts, Choral Connection, Bach Elgar Choir, New Opera Lyra, as well as a performance in Auckland, New Zealand of Brahms’ song cycle, Die schöne Magelone, staged by Aria Umezawa. Bradley made his US debut in 2017 performing the role of Agamemnon with Opera North in Offenbach’s La belle Hélène, while also covering the role of Fred/Petruccio in Cole Porter’s Kiss me Kate.
Awards include the Sondra Radvanovsky scholarship, awarded by the International Resource Centre for Performing Artists as one of 10 ‘Singing Stars: The Next Generation’; the Pears-Britten singing scholarship (University of Auckland); the Marie D’Albini scholarship in singing (University of Auckland); and a travelling scholarship to study in Italy in 2007 (University of Auckland). Bradley has also been a top 10 finalist in the New Zealand Aria Competition, the LEXUS Song Quest and the Rochester International Voice Competition.
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Ryan Downey -A proud Newfoundlander, tenor Ryan Downey is quickly gaining nationwide recognition for his “nimbleness of voice” (Bachtrack) and “attractive lyric tenor colour” (Edmonton Journal).
You’ll have seen Ryan on the opera stage recently with the Canadian Opera Company, Vancouver Opera, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Opera in Concert. Recent solo credits include the title role in North York Concert Orchestra’s production of Candide, Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Ralph Rackstraw in HMS Pinafore, Count Boni in Czardas Princess, Rodolfo in La boheme, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Goro (Pinkerton cover) in Madama Butterfly, the Gingerbread Witch in Hansel and Gretel and Basilio and Curzio Le nozze di Figaro. Additionally, Ryan has covered the roles of Remendado in Carmen and Spoletta in Tosca at the Canadian Opera Company.
On the concert stage, Ryan has recently sung Handel’s Messiah with the Edmonton Symphony and Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Mozart’s Requiem with the Windsor Symphony, Beethoven’s Mass in C with the Guelph Symphony as well as making his Kennedy Centre debut in Washington, DC, singing Adolphus Hailstork’s I will lift up mine eyes.
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Diane English has been a member of the Gallery Choir at St. Andrew’s for more than 20 years. Originally from BC, Diane moved to Toronto to pursue graduate work in music before joining the CBC as a producer for Radio 2/CBC Music. Diane worked at the CBC for a decade before starting her own arts management company, working with organizations like the Elora Festival, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Soundstreams Canada. Diane has also worked at a non-profit in parks and recreation sector and is now a consultant in that field. In addition to singing with St. Andrew’s and other professional choirs in Ontario, Diane is a certified fitness instructor with GoodLife and enjoys sewing, knitting and baking. Diane treasures many things about St. Andrew’s including the Karl Wilhelm organ, played so beautifully by Douglas Bodle and now Dan Bickle, the talented singers in the choir, the warm congregation, the gifted Ministers and the vibrant programs of this very special church community.
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Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Forster has been a member of St. Andrew’s Gallery Choir for more than 30 years. Her earliest memory is of singing at the top of her lungs, an activity she has happily pursued professionally with the Stratford Festival, the Canadian Opera Company, the Elora Festival, and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Elizabeth was a featured soloist in the JUNO Award-winning series of Classical Kids albums, including Beethoven Lives Upstairs. A native Torontonian, she holds degrees in vocal music and medieval studies from the University of Toronto, where she studied with Douglas Bodle. After a varied career in communications and on-air work at the CBC, Elizabeth has recently launched a career in real estate. Since 2012, she has been part of the Music at St. Andrew’s team led by Dan Bickle, helping to organize, produce and perform in musical events for the St. Andrew’s community and beyond. Two of these events have been broadcast on CBC Radio. Elizabeth looks forward to singing in the gallery with her talented colleagues and rejoining the St. Andrew’s community in person.
Tenor Keith Klassen has emerged to become one of Canada’s busiest vocal artists. Since graduating with honours from the Opera Division at the University of Toronto in 2002, he has performed over one hundred roles from the standard and new operatic repertoire. He has been engaged across Canada, as well as in Scotland, Ireland, Germany, the United States, the Czech Republic, and the Bahamas. He has received rave reviews, praised as a “tour de force, a commanding presence with superb vocal skills” (The Ontario Arts Review), for being “a skilled tenor, vocally spirited and robust, who works his emotional range with depth and authenticity” (For The Record), and as “one of the country’s most versatile artists, whose leading-man swagger, comic panache and solid-brass vocals steal the show whenever he appears” (The Toronto Star). NOW Magazine went so far as to rate Keith as one of Toronto’s top ten theatre artists. Keith has enjoyed singing at St Andrew’s for a decade and can’t wait to receive his commemorative watch, but will happily settle for singing and worshipping together in person.
Carrie Wiebe, soprano, is a versatile performer, having performed across genres, from opera to musical theatre to folk-country. She holds a Bachelor of Music – Performance from the University of Manitoba, an Certificate in Opera from the Vancouver Academy of Music, and spent three summers at the Banff Centre for the Arts where she performed in and work-shopped the productions of new Canadian works Frobisher and Filumena, by composer John Estacio and playwright John Murrell. (Incidentally, that is where she first met long-time friend and fellow St. Andrews soprano Allison!) Outside of music, she also holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy and Administration, and is currently working on her Professional Master’s in Law, both of which support her role as a Director at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Carrie has also been a soloist with Soundstreams and Queen of Pudddings Music Theatre and has recorded for CBC Radio and the Naxos classical label. A career highlight for Carrie was playing a nun in the critically acclaimed Toronto Mirvish production of The Sound of Music. She was a member of the Canadian Opera Company Chorus from 2012 to 2019.
After many years as a choir sub for Diane, Elizabeth and Allison in the St. Andrews Choir, Carrie is thrilled to have joined this wonderful group of singers full time. She is happy to be part of a vibrant, relevant and inviting church community in the heart of Toronto.
Mark Wilson has enjoyed singing at St Andrew’s for many years, having started when the building directly across the street was the Lord Simcoe Hotel, and Thomson Hall had yet to be built. He has worked professionally both as a performer and teacher throughout this time, in many diverse capacities and places. Although it’s all been very interesting, Mark really looks forward to a return to making good music, with great people, for great people – in person.
The St. Andrew’s Choristers
If you enjoy singing, we encourage you to come out and join us as a member of our wonderful congregational choir. The Choristers perform at selected Sunday worship services and at other musical events throughout the year.
