New Zealand Youth Choir

Paul Holley is a choral conductor, educator and motivator. His personal warmth and passion for choral music have inspired many singers to discover and develop their skills and achieve personal fulfilment as choral musicians. With over 25 years of teaching experience in secondary schools and many years of working with adult community choirs Paul knows how to connect with singers of all ages and enjoys collaborating with them in the music making process.

Paul is a graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music where he studied choral conducting with Dr John Nickson.

Paul is the Artistic Director of Voices of Birralee and conducts several ensembles including the Birralee Blokes and Resonance of Birralee. In 2006, the Birralee Blokes won the ABC Classic FM Choir of the Year competition before performing to acclaim at the 3rd International Male Voice Festival in Cornwall in 2007. In 2012 they were awarded Choir of the World at Kathaumixw in Canada. Resonance of Birralee, a youth choir for young adults has toured nationally and internationally and in 2008, were gold medallists at the World Choir Games in Graz, Austria. Resonance has since gone on to make several recordings and performed many times with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Pops Orchestra..

Paul is also the co-conductor of the national youth choir Gondwana Chorale that in early 2019 performed in the UK, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and previously toured to the USA and France.

As a choral educator Paul is dedicated to excellence in choral education and regularly features as guest conductor/clinician at festivals, conferences and music competitions throughout Australia. He also contributed a chapter to the book Male Voices: Stories of boys learning through making music (S D Harrison, Ed, 2009, ACER). In January 2016, Paul was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his services to choral music.

Carl Crossin OAM (Adelaide, SA) – Gondwana Chorale

Carl Crossin is an Australian choral conductor, educator and composer. He is a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the University of Adelaide. He was director of the Elder Conservatorium of Music in the University of Adelaide in 2010-14. Crossin founded the Adelaide Chamber Singers in 1985, and as director he has toured with them to Britain, Europe, North America and South-East Asia, won several awards for performance and CD recordings, and represented Australia in international choral and music education symposia and festivals. As well, Crossin and the Adelaide Chamber Singers have embarked on a program of commissioning and presenting new choral music. Over his career, Carl has conducted the Adelaide Symphony Chorus, the Intervarsity Choral Festival, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs, the Melbourne Chorale and Gondwana Chorale.

Aotearoa NZ Academy Choir

Rowan is a freelance choral conductor and clinician who has recently relocated with his whānau from Auckland to Wellington. He has just finished as Musical Director for the Auckland Youth Choir, Director of Choirs at Holy Trinity Cathedral Auckland and Musical Director of the internationally acclaimed school choir Choralation from Westlake Girls and Boys High Schools. Rowan is also an Associate Conductor for Voices NZ Chamber Choir and a National Choral Mentor for the New Zealand Choral Federation.

Along with being recently appointed to the Aotearoa NZ Academy Choir co-Directorship, he also begins this year conducting the Wellington Youth Choir, Seraphim at Chilton St James School and the Scots College Chamber Choir. He is a regular guest conductor at the Gondwana National Choral School in Australia and is in much demand as a conductor, adjudicator and clinician nationally and internationally. Under his leadership, Choralation was placed 1^st in the Mixed Choir category at the Summa Cum Laude International Music Festival in Vienna, Austria.

As a singer, Rowan is a member of the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir.

A passionate musician, award-winning conductor, and internationally respected educator, adjudicator and clinician, Elise Bradley served for many years as the Head of Department Music at Westlake Girls’ High School in Auckland, New Zealand. She founded and conducted the school’s renowned treble choir, Key Cygnetures from 1991-2007, and directed the New Zealand Secondary Students’ Choir from 2001-2007, both of which won numerous national and international awards. She was also a soloist and member of New Zealand’s National Chamber Choir, Voices New Zealand from 1998 – 2010. In January 2018, Ms. Bradley was named a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit (MNZM), an honour awarded in recognition of her services to Music.

Elise repatriated home to New Zealand at the end of 2021, after 14½ years as the Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus. During her tenure, the Chorus recorded professionally, commissioned Canadian compositions, collaborated with numerous international and national artists, and represented Toronto on nine international and four national tours. She also produced a virtual recording for the ACDA National Conference in 2021 and for the Hong Kong World Choral Festival in 2022. The Chorus is internationally recognized for the high standard of its performances, and for its challenging repertoire which spans diverse cultures, languages, and traditions. Its latest CD, Sounzscapes: From Our Lands, directed by Elise Bradley, was named the most Outstanding Choral Recording by Choral Canada in 2014.

In addition to her work as Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus, Ms. Bradley received many invitations to conduct, adjudicate choirs, and present at conferences around the globe, including recently the 11th World Symposium on Choral Music (Spain), Dozan wa Awtar (Jordan), the inaugural New Zealand National Children’s Choir (Auckland, NZ), the IFCM World Choral Expo (Macau), Gondwana Voices (Australia), Orientale Concentus (Singapore), Crystal Children’s Choir (United States), Carnegie Hall, (United States), and Hong Kong Inter-School Choral Festival (China). She has also been invited to present at the World Choral Symposium in Turkey in April 2023.

Since her return to New Zealand, Elise has co-founded the company “Choral DirectioNZ” and the New Zealand Children’s Choral Academy, and has completed a number of Kodály Music Certificates in preparation for her return to the primary music classroom as part of the Creatives in Schools initiatives. She is currently the Music Director of the Hamilton Civic Choir, Nota Bella Junior Choir at Westlake Girls’ High School, Leonessa at Takapuna Grammar School, Ficino Primary Choirs, Kristin ‘Noteworthy’ Choir and she conducts the Chiron Choir for the Chiron Music Academy.

Ms. Bradley is dedicated to inspiring young singers through the study of the choral art, and to helping build not only their musical abilities, but also their self-confidence and life skills. Through music, she believes that they also learn about leadership and responsibility while experiencing the special joys and friendships that participation in the choir provides.