James Pinhorn is a native of St. John’s, Newfoundland, where he appeared frequently on stage and on CBC Radio and Television as a boy soprano and actor. He moved to Toronto in 1985 and completed a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at the University of Toronto. During his studies, James had several exciting conducting opportunities including conducting the Concert Choir in a performance of ‘Sharon Fragments’ at a gala concert honouring Canadian composer John Beckwith, and conducting the back-stage chorus in three performances of Ravel’s ballet ‘Daphnis et Chloe’ for the National Ballet of Canada. He served as conductor of the University Chorus at the University of Toronto for two years before accepting the position of conductor of the University Women’s Chorus, a post he held for 6 years. James was also the guest chorus conductor for Robert Cooper in two live choral performances of the opera ‘Marina’ for the Opera in Concert Chorus. He also had the honour of conducting the Massed Choir for 15 seasons at the Ontario Educational Leadership Centre in the Intermediate Arts Emerging Leadership Course for Grade Seven students and served as a Course Administrator for this camp for five years.
James is recently retired as Curriculum Leader of Music at Agincourt Collegiate Institute in the Toronto District School Board where he taught both Vocal Music and Computers and Music courses. His auditioned choir at the school, the Agincourt Madrigal Singers, was awarded the Leslie Bell Choral Award for the best choir at the Canadian Music Educators recorded competition and won National Gold Awards for live performances at MusicFest Canada a total of nine times. Under his leadership, Agincourt’s choral ensembles were twice awarded the Ed Bolsby Trophy for the top High School Ensemble in the local Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival, in 2012 and in 2014. In the Spring of 2014, the Agincourt Men’s Chorus also won the City Of Lincoln prize for Best Male Chorus at the National Kiwanis Festival in British Columbia. In 2015, the Agincourt Madrigals Singers won the Paul J. Bourret Prize for best SATB Chorus in The National Music Festival Association’s recorded competition, held in Edmonton, Alberta.
From 2017-2020 James took the post as conductor of the Bach Chamber Youth Choir in Toronto from their previous conductor, Linda Beaupre. In his very first season, the choir competed a ‘clean sweep’, winning first place in each provincial category they entered in the recorded competition of the Canadian Music Festival Association, and also won first place in each class they entered at the National level. They were awarded the ‘Diane Loomer Choral Award’ for Best Overall Performance by a Choir in the festival.
Choir Camp 