February 22, 2025 - Church of the Redeemer
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To honour the legacy of our long time artistic director and further our mission of championing the Canadian opera artists of tomorrow, Toronto City Opera will host the 2nd annual Macina Voice Competition
Competition Highlights
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Monetary prizes to be distributed at the discretion of the adjudicators
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Consideration for future performance opportunities with Toronto City Opera
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The opportunity for young singers to perform for a jury panel of opera industry experts and a live audience
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Audience Choice Prize as voted by the audience. ​​​
2025 Finalists:
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Alex Hetherington – Mezzo-Soprano
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Matthew Li – Bass
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Lauren Margison – Soprano
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Christian Masucci-Facchini – Countertenor
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Alex Halliday - Bass-Baritone
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Paulina Swierczek – Soprano
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Spencer VanDellen – Tenor
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McKenzie Warriner – Soprano
Adjudication Panel
Adrianne Pieczonka is one of the world's leading sopranos of her generation. She is internationally celebrated for her operatic interpretations of Wagner, Strauss, Verdi and Puccini. She is a dedicated educator, mentoring young singers around the world and conducting guest master classes throughout North America and Europe. Adrianne has worked with the Young Artists at the Lindemann Program at the Metropolitan Opera, with Young Artists at the Vienna State Opera, with the COC Ensemble and at many of Canada's leading universities. Since 2019, Adrianne is Chair in Voice at GGS where she plans and casts the opera productions and oversees all visiting masterclass visitors, as well as teaching voice.
Stage director and choreographer Anna Theodosakis has collaborated with companies across Canada including the Canadian Opera Company, Calgary Opera, Edmonton Opera, Saskatoon Opera, Against the Grain Theatre, the Banff Centre, and more. Anna was selected as the 2024 Merola Opera Stage Director where she directed the Grand Finale, Song as Drama Recital, and co-directed the Schwabacher Scenes Concert. Since 2017, Anna has appeared as a frequent collaborator with the Canadian Opera Company, earning a nomination for the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Direction for her work as revival director on Die Zauberflöte. She is a COC Ensemble Studio faculty member and dramatic coach. Passionate about working with emerging artists, she currently teaches acting and dance for the University of Toronto's Opera Division. She has been an invited guest stage director and lecturer of acting, movement, and digital techniques with nine different universities. Engagements this season include directing Don Giovanni for Calgary Opera, Così fan tutte for UofT Opera, La bohème for Manitoba Opera, and returning as Resident Assistant Director with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis. www.annatheodosakis.com
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Jennifer Tung is the Artistic Director of Toronto City Opera, a Dora nominated conductor (Gould's Wall), and assistant conductor of the Mississauga Symphony Orchestra. In 2020/21, she was selected as a conducting fellow in the inaugural year of the Women in Musical Leadership program. She has conducted with the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Opera McGill, Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic and Kamloops Symphony. In 2023, Jennifer conducted the world premieres of Show Room (Rodney Sharman/Atom Egoyan) and Of the Sea (Ian Cusson/Kanika Ambrose). Jennifer is on faculty at Toronto’s Glenn Gould School.
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Rebecca Townsend is an accomplished arts administrator with a wealth of expertise in the fields of classical music and opera. Her portfolio is distinguished by her fostering of close collaborations with esteemed arts organizations and leaders worldwide.
Passionate about sharing her expertise with the next generation, she has been a speaker at the University of Toronto and participated in panels for the Association for Opera in Canada and Opera America. Additionally, she has served as a judge for the NATS Boston Competition and provided consultancy for prominent young artist programs, including Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M. Faris Program, Opéra de Montréal’s Atelier lyrique, and the Highlands Opera Studio. In addition to her role as Artist Manager with Stratagem Artists, Ms. Townsend also contributes her knowledge to the team at Lenny's Studio where she develops impactful content and connects artists with global audiences. As a former soprano, she performed roles such as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte and Rose Maurrant in Street Scene, in addition to giving recitals at prestigious venues around Canada. Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music from the University of Toronto, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Arts Management from Centennial College. Most recently, she earned the Osgoode Certificate in Entertainment Law from Osgoode Hall Law School.
Based in Toronto, Sandra Horst is the Canadian Opera Company’s Price Family Chorus Master, where her repertoire spans more than seventy operas, including her COC conducting debut in Il viaggio a Reims. As Director of Musical Studies for Opera at the University of Toronto she has conducted repertoire ranging from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, to Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing and Jonathan Dove’s Mansfield Park. She is a guest faculty member of Open Space: Opera in the 21st Century at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and co-founder of the National Opera Intensive summer program with UofT Opera and Toronto’s Against the Grain Theatre. A frequent Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions judge, Ms Horst served as audition consultant and chorus master for Opera Theatre of St Louis and Edmonton Opera, and has been on the music staff of the COC, Juilliard Opera Centre, Chautauqua Institute School of Singing, Boston Lyric Opera and Opera Ontario. In addition to being recognized as one of the 100 Alumni of Achievement, in 2019 she received an Honorary Doctorate in Music from Wilfrid Laurier University and holds a Masters degree in Accompaniment from New England Conservatory, Boston. An active recital collaborator, she has been heard recently in recital with Brandon Cedel, Michael Schade and Marie Berard, Erin Wall, Myles Mykkanen and Elena Tsaligova, as well as in performance on WGBH radio in New England and CBC Radio.
Competition Pianist
Ivan Estey Jovanovic is the accompanist / Music Director at TCO. He completed his BMus and MMus in piano performance at the Belgrade University of Arts. In 2004, he joined Belgrade Opera Orchestra as répétiteur and concert pianist and in 2005 joined their staff as a principal vocal coach. In 2013 he completed his MMus. in Collaborative Piano at the UofT, won the Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying, then joined UofT’s Opera Division as a vocal coach and pianist. He is a vocal coach and harpsichordist in UofT’s Early Music Department and Schola Cantorum and the vocal coach/harpsichordist with Toronto Lyric Opera.
History
Giuseppe Macina took Toronto's oldest opera workshop and transformed it in 1967 into the Toronto Opera Repertoire (later Toronto City Opera) in partnership with Toronto's public school board, presenting a whole repertoire of fully staged operas with the greatest detail and musical integrity. He retired as Artistic Director in 2013. In 1977, he was awarded the Jubilee Silver Medal by Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to Italian culture in Canada. In December of 2005, Mr. Macina was made a member of the Cavagliere Ordine della Croce della Stella della Solidarietá Italianat, the equivalent of a knighthood, bestowed by the Italian government.
2024 Macina Competition participants
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Hannah Crawford*, Simon Genga*, Midori Marsh*, Colin Mackey, Jacob Abrahamse, Alex Mathews, Elias Theocharidis, Ellen McAteer
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*Grand Prize Winners