Our story

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Aureas Voces: "GATHERING" was the first virtual concert produced by Nick Veltmeyer. The work was written for a live-stream presented by Musique Royale. This video production aired on Nov. 21st at 7:30pm, 2020. 

The Concert Programme was written by Artistic Director, Nick Veltmeyer, and featured a mix of traditional material, newly composed material, and improvised material.

Aureas Voces: "BEGINNING" is a virtual concert and public presentation directed by Nick Veltmeyer featuring a group of collaborating emerging artists.  The work was designed for a live-stream produced in partnership and presented by Youth Art Connection. The video production aired on Feb. 15th, 2021. BEGINNING explores the complex heritage of Nova Scotian through a celebration of seven unique musical artists. The programme is rooted in mirroring the significance of the Helen Creighton Collection to Nova Scotian heritage, with an emphasis on the cultural diversity of the collection. 

The lineup of musicians crosses cultures and genres, and includes Juno nominated Cassie and Maggie, ECMA nominated Raymond Sewell, and  SOCAN Young Songwriter’s award winner ZAMANI.

The virtual concert was hosted by Halifax-based journalist Kyah Sparks as a fundraiser for the local charity Youth Art Connection. 

Jimmy & Rosalia is an opera written by Nick Veltmeyer.  This piece gathers two streams of early music: baroque and settler folk. Jimmy & Rosalia tells the timeless love story of Jimmy, a poor Acadian shepherd, and Rosalia, an English immigrant from a wealthy family. The two meet and enter a journey of joy, loss, and restoration, one that rattles the social order. Songs from the Nova Scotian settler folk collection of Helen Creighton, Canada's First Lady of Folklore, are cross pollinated with Handel's Acis and Galatea to create the work.  

This project aims to bring a larger visibility to traditional oral culture, presenting it as equal to the written cannon, creating new and relevant art of the highest quality.  

Banff Residency 2020

In February, four core members of the Aureas Voces team travelled to Banff Centre of Arts & Creativity to workshop the opera Jimmy and Rosalia, for two weeks in the program Concert in the 21st Century.

Oceans Apart is a virtual concert produced by Nick Veltmeyer, Aureas Voces, the University of Toronto Historical Performance Department, the Theatre of Early Music and Riddle Films.  The work is an adaptation of Veltmeyer's 2019 work, An Ocean Apart, written for a live-stream presented by the University of Toronto Faculty of Music. This video production is set for early 2021. 

Aureas Voces was founded in 2018 as a guided collaboration of exceptional emerging Canadian talent to perform the original works of Nick Veltmeyer. Our first year included 4 unique programmes, 8 concerts and 20 talented performers. 

Our first four programmes in 2018  were Lamentations, featuring Tallis' Lamentations of Jeremiah and a modern premiere of John Donne's translation of the lamentations by Henry Ford ; "Bach's Organ Mass" ; "The Tudor Rose" (Tudor Music) . In this first year Aureas Voces built a community and produced a lot of live classical music. 

In 2019 Aureas Voces performed An Ocean Apart, a stunning work which combines compositions based on Nova Scotian folk songs from the Helen Creighton Collection and works from celebrated English composer Henry Purcell (1659-1695) that tell of a journey of undying love across oceans and lifetimes.  Nick Veltmeyer convenes emerging artists from Halifax, Toronto,  Montreal and New York for this unique project.

In 2020 the ensemble started a new adventure, creating a brand new indie early music opera : Jimmy and Rosalia.