A native of Pouce Coupe, British Columbia, Errol Gay holds a Bachelor of Music from the University of British Columbia, a Master of Arts in Musicology from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and a Doctor of Musical Arts from Stanford University (California) in Conducting. He has been Music Director of orchestras in New York, Texas and North Carolina and has been a studio and orchestra trombonist and pianist in Vancouver and Toronto, as well as holding professorial positions at several American universities.

From 1970 to 1976, Errol was a conductor and chorus master with the Canadian Opera Company. After 1983, he was repeatedly engaged as a guest conductor by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and other leading Canadian Orchestras, including Edmonton, Saskatoon, Regina, Winnipeg, Windsor, Kitchener-Waterloo and the National Arts Centre (Ottawa). For several seasons, he was Assistant Musical Director for the Charlottetown Festival and Co-Conductor of the High Park Chorus of Toronto, as well as Music Advisor/Conductor of the Hart House Orchestra and Adjunct Associate Professor of Conducting at the University of Toronto. Maestro Gay was Music Director of Orchestra Toronto from 2002 to 2010. In 2006, he retired after 24 years as Associate Principal Librarian of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Errol was privileged to conduct for such outstanding and diverse artists as Doc Severinsen, Dizzy Gillespie, King’s Singers, the Modern Jazz Quartet, the Chieftains, Canadian Brass, Jean-Luc Ponty, Ferrante & Teicher, the National Tap Dance Company, Magic Circle Mime Company, Jacques Israelievitch, Mary Lou Fallis, Ann Mortifee, Martin Beaver, Erika Raum, Al Simmons, Fred Penner, Monica Manchi, and Anne Murray. He has performed as pianist with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, and with the Empire Brass; and was engaged by Sir Andrew Davis to be “cover” conductor on two European tours of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

In December 2005 Errol’s opera, A Dickens of a Christmas (based on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, conceived by Ann Cooper Gay with libretto by Michael Patrick Albano) was produced by the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, with guest soloists, at the Harbourfront Theatre in Toronto. An expanded score was greeted with great acclaim in December 2006, and the work was given its European premiere at the “Summer Music on the Shannon” Festival in Limerick, Ireland in August 2007. A Dickens of a Christmas was remounted in Toronto in 2008 and 2010.

Errol again collaborated with Michael Albano in writing a second opera for the Canadian Children’s Opera Company—Laura’s Cow: The Legend of Laura Secord, which premiered in 2012 and was remounted in 2013. With the success of these two works, the Artistic Director of the Company, Ann Cooper Gay, proposed that the team present a third opera, Alice in Wonderland, in 2015.

MICHAEL PATRICK ALBANO is an educator, librettist and freelance director. He recently retired as Associate Professor and resident stage director of the opera program at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where he has staged over sixty operas. An accomplished librettist, Mr. Albano has written six children’s opera librettos; The Very Last Green Thing, The Thunder of Horses, and The Enchantment of Dreams – commissioned and performed by the Opera Theatre of St. Louis and the Washington Opera. In 2005, A Dickens of a Christmas was commissioned & premiered by the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus followed by Laura’s Cow, The Legend of Laura Secord, presented by Luminato in June of 2012, and most recently, Alice in Wonderland.

Mr. Albano’s interest in the development of new opera has led to a graduate course in operatic composition at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music as well as his involvement for twenty years as resident dramaturge for Tapestry New Opera Works annual composer/librettist laboratory. In May of 2024, his children’s opera, The Very Last Green Thing was given its UK premiere by the Welsh National Opera. Future projects include Figaro in 87 Minutes and Fall River, the legend of Lizzie Borden with music by Cecilia Livingstone which will receive its world premiere at Toronto’s Elgin Theatre in November of 2026.

Ann Cooper Gay is an accomplished conductor, opera director and teacher. She is best known for her extraordinary achievements directing and conducting opera and music theatre for young audiences and communities.

Gay has formed youth choirs, established drama and music theatre programs, founded arts camps and festivals, and developed innovative programming throughout North America.

She served as the Artistic Director of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company (CCOC) from 1996–2015. Under her leadership, the CCOC became one of the largest children’s opera companies in North America and a recognized leader in opera training and production for young people. She directed and conducted over 30 productions for the company and commissioned numerous new works for young voices.

As a conductor at the University of Toronto Women’s Chorus, Associate Conductor of the Hart House Chorus, and Director of Music at St. Basil’s Church, she has collaborated with many of Canada’s leading musicians and composers.

Gay has been a frequent adjudicator, clinician, and guest conductor across Canada and internationally. She has presented workshops and lectures on children’s opera, arts education, and community engagement.

Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including the Toronto Arts Award, the Toronto Arts Foundation’s Arts Educator Award, and honorary life memberships from several arts organizations.

Ann Cooper Gay continues to be an advocate for accessible, high-quality arts education and performance opportunities for young people.

Chelsea Woolley is a playwright, director, and arts educator. Select playwriting work includes: Enormity, Girl, and the Earthquake in Her Lungs (Nightwood Theatre), Paint Me This House of Love (Tarragon Theatre), and The Mountain (Geordie Theatre). She has been featured at the Kennedy Centre in Washington D.C., and at the “Shakespeare is Dead” Festival in Belgium. She is also the founder of the Mixed-Arts Performance Partnership Program connecting young artists living in precarity to professional mentorship. Chelsea is the Head of Drama here at the Canadian Children’s Opera Company where she has directed programming for five seasons. Last season she directed the Young Artist Studio’s production of Dido and Aeneas, and assistant directed The Monkiest King. Chelsea is the 2025 Tarragon Theatre Bulmash-Siegel New Creation Development Residency Award recipient, and is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada’s Playwriting Program.

Teri Dunn is a celebrated soprano, conductor, and music educator, widely recognized for her artistry and leadership in performance, pedagogy, and choral direction. A native of Ottawa, she was recently appointed Artistic Director of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, where she has served as Music Director since 2015. Under her direction, the CCOC has presented critically acclaimed productions, including the world premieres of The Monkiest King by Alice Ho (recorded for the CMC, Dora nominated), The Nightingale of a Thousand Songs by Serouj Kradjian, and a European tour of Hans Krása’s Brundibár. She has also prepared the children’s chorus and soloists for numerous Canadian Opera Company productions, including La Bohème, Carmen, The Magic Flute, and Hansel and Gretel.

From 2008 to 2025, Ms. Dunn served as Dean of Choral Studies at St. Michael’s Choir School, overseeing the school’s renowned choral program and directing three of its internationally recognized ensembles. A dedicated educator, she currently leads the Soprano-Alto Chorus at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music.

Earlier in her career, she was Assistant Artistic Director of the Toronto Children’s Chorus (2002-2012), and held conducting posts at the Royal Conservatory of Music and Hart House Chorus. Her choirs have been invited guests at Carnegie Hall, the Vatican, the Toronto International Choral Festival, and performed with leading Canadian ensembles such as the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and Amici. Her ensembles have earned numerous accolades, including first prize at the National Competition of Canadian Amateur Choirs.

An acclaimed soprano, Ms. Dunn has been praised as “outstanding” by BBC Music Magazine.  She has premiered works by Canadian composers James Rolfe, John Hawkins, Micheline Roi, Abigail Richardson, and Jeff Ryan and has sung operatic roles including Galatea (Acis and Galatea), Belinda (Dido and Aeneas), Alice in John Beckwith’s Night Blooming Cereus and Eurydice in the world premiere of James Rolfe’s Orpheus and Eurydice. She has appeared with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Ottawa Bach Choir, New Music Concerts, Soundstreams, Toronto Masque Theatre, and others. Her discography features works by George Crumb, Osvaldo Golijov, Gloria Coates, John Beckwith and Harry Somers. 

Ms. Dunn holds a Master of Music from the University of Toronto, where she studied with Mary Morrison. She was a prizewinner in the 1999 Eckhardt-Grammatté Competition and recipient of the 2002 Leslie Bell Prize in Choral Conducting, awarded by Choirs Ontario.

Tracy Lynne Cann is thrilled to return to the Canadian Children’s Opera Company, where she first began working in 2004, early in her stage-management journey. Over the past 20+ years, her career has taken her across Canada and around the world, with projects spanning the United States, Asia, and Europe. She has collaborated with a wide range of companies, including Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the Canadian Opera Company, DREAM Co, The Charlottetown Festival, GFour Productions, Globe Theatre, The Grove Theatre, Loose Tea Music Theatre, Magnus Theatre, Port Parole Productions, Ross Petty Productions, The Royal Conservatory of Music, Segal Centre, Soulpepper Theatre Co, ShaggyPup Productions, Tweed & Company Theatre, and Workman Arts.

COMING SOON.

Claire Thornton (She/Her) is a Stage Manager from Oakville, Ontario. Starting as a performer on stage, Claire earned her Master of Music Performance in Opera and Voice from McGill University following a Bachelor of Music Education from Western University.  Claire is currently a 2025-2026 Edmonton Opera Emerging Artist, with whom she travelled the country stage managing Tosca at the National Arts Centre, Yukon Arts Center, and with the Saskatoon Symphony Orchestra. Other select management credits include: Nabucco (Canadian Opera Company), The Handmaid’s Tale, Indians on Vacation (Banff Centre for the Performing Arts & Creativity), The Light in the Piazza, Blond Eckbert, Semele (Opera McGill), Pagliacci and The Tender Lands (Toronto City Opera). As a singer, Claire has performed as a soloist with the Oakville Symphony Orchestra and in productions of A World Goes Round, All Things Lovely, Don Giovanni (Opera McGill), Catch Me If  You Can (King’s Players), and If/Then (Theatre Western). This is Claire’s second production with the CCOC after previously Stage Managing The Monkiest King.

Lindsay McDonald is a Toronto-based emerging theatre practitioner and a 2020 graduate of The University of Waterloo’s Arts and Business program majoring in Theatre and Performance. She specializes in Stage Management and Technical Production. Recent credits include: Assistant Stage Manager on The Telephone/Baby Kintyre (Royal Conservatory of Music, 2025), Assistant Stage Manager on The Monkiest King (Canadian Children’s Opera Company, 2025), Stage Manager for 2 shows in The Works In Progress Festival (MT Space, 2025), Assistant Stage Manager on The Hobbit (Canadian Children’s Opera Company, 2024), Apprentice Stage Manager on Dialogues of the Carmelites (Royal Conservatory of Music, 2024), Apprentice Stage Manager on La Boheme (Canadian Opera Company, 2023).

Julia Kim is a set, costume, and projection designer. She holds a BFA (Hons.) in Performance Production from TMU, graduating in 2015. Julia’s early career included five seasons as an assistant designer at Shaw Festival and Stratford Festival. 

Her work has taken her across Canada and internationally, where she has designed for numerous theatre and dance productions. In 2021, she took on the role of resident designer and taught theatre design at Mount Allison University for 2 years. Recently, her work has been presented at Journées Théâtrales de Carthage in Tunis and SIDance Festival in Seoul. 

Julia’s excellence in design has been recognized with nominations for the Pauline McGibbon Award in 2020 and the Virginia Myrtle Cooper Award in 2025. 

IG: @yeon._.studio

Website: www.yeon.studio

Selected Design Credits: 

Set and Costume:

Jade Circle, rice & beans Theatre (2024)

Woking Phoenix, Silk Baht Collective & Theatre Passe Muraille (2024)

Narnia, MTYP (2023) 

Kim’s Convenience, Grand Theatre (2023)

Set:

Go For Gold, Audrey Pham, Lunchbox Theatre (2025)

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – #2B, Vertigo Theatre (2024)

The Supine Cobbler, GCTC (2023) 

Pass Over, Obsidian Theatre Company (2019)

Costume:

Mamma Mia, TIP (2024)

The Drawer Boy, Watermark Theatre (2022)

Projection: 

Okay, You Can Stop Now, Theatre Passe Muraille (2023)

Omisimawiw, Riser Edmonton (2023)

Perseus Rebelo is a costume-maker and wardrobe specialist based in Toronto. A York U alum, he has done costume work for over ten years on a variety of theatrical/operatic productions with companies including Tapestry Opera, George Brown College, Innovative Arts, and Shifting Ground Collective; on short films; and on the television shows Star Trek: Starfleet Academy and Interview WIth the Vampire. Alice in Wonderland is his fourth production as Costume Coordinator with the CCOC, but first as Costume Designer—he is thrilled to be a part of it!

COMING SOON.

Pianist and composer Stéphane Mayer has established himself as one of Canada’s premier collaborative piano artists. A graduate of the COC ensemble, Stéphane has served as a rehearsal pianist and member of music staff for Carmen, The Magic Flute, Norma and Arabella among many other productions at the Canadian Opera Company. He has also served as an opera répétiteur for productions of Les dialogues des Carmélites and Flight (Glenn Gould School), La Bohème (Edmonton Opera), Louis Riel (Opéra de Québec), Missing (Pacific Opera Victoria) and The Rocking Horse Winner (Tapestry Opera). An accomplished art-song recitalist, having studied German Lied extensively at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien, Stéphane has appeared on stages across the country with many of Canada’s leading vocal artists. For the past 4 years, Stéphane has been a member of music staff for Highlands Opera Studio. There he served as head coach and répétiteur for their productions of Don Giovanni, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Eugene Onegin and L’elisir d’amore. A graduate of McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, Stéphane also worked as a vocal coach and accompanist at Western University.

Claire Harris is a Toronto-based collaborative pianist, specialising in opera and contemporary repertoire.

Claire is Associate Director with Opera by Request, Toronto, and acts as Music Director for productions during their season. She is also pianist with Crossing Borders, a company performing works by living composers in Canada and internationally. Claire is the co-producer and pianist for Opera Revue, a Toronto-based company bringing opera to casual venues. She also works regularly as a répétiteur and coach with companies such as No Strings Theatre, Windsor Symphony, Mississauga Symphony as well as continuing vocal coaching work at the University of Toronto.

Prior to moving to Toronto in 2018, Claire was a staff accompanist at the Royal College of Music, London, as well as working with companies including English Touring Opera, the Rossini Young Artists’ Festival, Opera Alumnus, and the Academie de La Roche D’Hys annual opera workshop in France.

Originally from New Zealand, Claire holds a Bachelor of Music from the New Zealand School of Music and a Masters from the Royal College of Music, London, England.

For the past year, she has been the pianist for Amarras, a Toronto-based contemporary Argentinian Tango ensemble.