Hamilton Civic Choir is over the moon to announce that Elise Bradley will be the new Musical Director from 2022.  A passionate musician, award-winning conductor, and internationally respected adjudicator and clinician, Elise served for many years as the Head of Department Music at Westlake Girls’ High School in Auckland where she founded the internationally award-winning Key Cygnetures choir in 1992, and where she also received both regional and national awards for Excellence in Teaching. For many years, she was a soloist and member of the National Chamber Choir, Voices New Zealand, and from 2000 to 2007, she also directed the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir, which won a number of awards  internationally. In 2018, Elise was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), a  Royal Honour awarded in recognition of her services to Music.  The 2021-2022 season marks Elise Bradley’s fifteenth year as Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus.  We are looking forward to having Elise back in New Zealand and sharing her knowledge and experience with the choir and the wider Waikato.

Hamilton Civic Choir has delighted national and international audiences with concerts of great choral music performed at the highest musical standards since 1946.  Being a fully auditioned choir with approximately 50 singers, we are able to perform works outside the scope of many community-based choirs. In addition to the large choral works of the great composers, usually performed with organ or orchestral accompaniment and the best national and international soloists, the choir’s repertoire includes chamber music and other shorter and more modern works.  We sang in Carnegie Hall in 2018 as part of DCINY’s Dreamweaver concert, and in 2019 we toured in Melbourne, including a collaborative concert with Melbourne’s CHIME Choir to commemorate ANZAC Day.