Canadian Children's Opera Chorus

The Canadian Children's Opera Company (Previously called the Canadian Children's Opera Chorus, CCOC) was founded in 1968 by Ruby Mercer and Lloyd Bradshaw. The company consists of five divisions of approximately 240 boys and girls aged 6 to 19. The Principal Chorus has over 80 choristers, and they participate as the children's chorus in productions by the Canadian Opera Company (COC). The current artistic director/music directors are Dean Burry/Teri Dunn. The CCOC performs many times in the year; in addition to COC productions, they perform with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra,Soundstreams Canada, the Hannaford Street Silver Band, Art of Time Ensemble, and The Tenors as well as in their own shows.

The CCOC has toured across Europe and Canada, and continue to expand its repertoire of music in various languages including English, French, Italian, Serbian, Russian, Mandarin (Chinese), Hungarian, German, Inuit, as well as several African languages.

The company's repertoire consists of a mix of traditional music and modern classical pieces. The group also sings various genres of music including folk songs, opera, musicals and jazz. They have released five CDs.

Every few years, the CCOC goes on a tour across Europe with choristers from the CCOC's Principal and Youth Choruses. The tour generally lasts a few weeks. Over the course of the tour the CCOC does many concerts and in 2011, had the privilege to compete in the Summa Cum Laude International Youth Music Festival in Vienna for the first time. The CCOC placed 2nd in the treble category of the competition during their tour in July, 2011. In the summer of 2017, the CCOC toured Prague, Krakow and Budapest with their production of Brundibar by Hans Krasa. The choir visited and performed at the concentration camp where the opera was performed over 50 times.

On October 26th 2017, the CCOC celebrated their 50th anniversary with a concert titled "Ruby's Gold" at the Four Seasons Centre. The evening was hosted by tenor Ben Heppner, and featured many Canadian singers including Krisztina Szabó, Simone Osborne, Measha Brueggergosman and Andrew Haji, many of whom are CCOC alumni.

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