About

Musique Royale presents Capella Regalis Choirs for two concerts in Pictou and Parrsboro, directed by Nick Halley and Vanessa Halley, and accompanied by keyboardist and composer Paul Halley. Expect a rich and varied concert program—from sacred anthems of the last 500 years selected from the choir’s Evensong repertoire, to folk songs from around the world, to pieces from Capella Regalis’s latest recording, Songs of the Sea, including such gems as “Farewell to Nova Scotia” and “The Leaving of Liverpool” uniquely arranged for choir, piano, percussion, and organ by Paul and Nick themselves. The concerts take place at St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Pictou on Friday June 6 at 7 pm, and at St George’s Anglican Church in Parrsboro on Saturday June 7 at 3 pm. The choir will also perform at St Mary’s Anglican Church, PEI on Thursday June 5, and in Halifax at the Cathedral Church of All Saints on Sunday June 15.

About the Artists

Capella Regalis

Capella Regalis is a Canadian charity dedicated to training singers within a centuries-old choral tradition and performing choral music of the highest excellence. Founded in Nova Scotia by director Nick Halley in 2010 to build upon the best aspects of the European tradition of church choirs and to revitalize this method of music training in Canada, Capella Regalis now comprises a Boys Choir, Girls Choir, and professional Men’s Choir based in Halifax. In November 2024, Capella Regalis launched its South Shore Program, which provides weekly singing rehearsals in Lunenburg for children from Nova Scotia’s South Shore communities. All Capella Regalis children’s choirs are free and open to any child who is keen to learn music.

Capella Regalis Choirs regularly sing Choral Evensong in the Cathedral Church of All Saints, Halifax, as part of the Cathedral’s Sundays at Four series. The choirs also perform concerts around Nova Scotia and beyond in a busy September – June season, and engage the public in many music outreach initiatives. Recent performances include J.S. Bach’s Easter Cantata BWV 4, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Fauré’s Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien, Rutter’s Visions, and the Paul Winter Consort’s Missa Gaia/Earth Mass; annual tour programs of sacred and secular repertoire from across the Western tradition, and the popular, annual Christmas series, A Chorister’s Christmas.

Capella Regalis has released four CDs, with a fifth one due out in time for this tour: Songs of the Sea (coming spring 2025), Benjamin Britten: A Ceremony of Carols (2023), Love Came Down: Carols for Christmas (2019), Greater Love (2017) and My Eyes for Beauty Pine (2014), as well as many online performance broadcasts. To see and hear audio and video recordings, find upcoming events, and learn more about the programming and philosophy of Capella Regalis, please visit https://capellaregalis.com.

Nick Halley

Nick Halley is a drummer/percussionist, keyboardist, composer, and conductor based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Born in New York City, he studied drumming and percussion with Jamey Haddad from an early age, majored in jazz and classical percussion at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan and spent a year training and performing in Brazil prior to returning to New York City to attend The New School University’s jazz and contemporary music program.

As a drummer and world percussionist, Nick has performed and recorded internationally with a wide range of musicians including American musical icon James Taylor, Paul Halley, the late Oscar Castro-Neves, Glenn Patscha, Old Man Luedecke, Suzie LeBlanc, Chris Norman, David McGuinness & Revenge of the Folk Singers, Concerto Caledonia, and Viradouro Escola de Samba. Nick often performs with Dinuk Wijeratne in ensembles of musicians from around the world, including Kinan Azmeh, Nazih Borish, Joseph Petric, Roberto Occhipinti, and Sandeep Das. In 2008, Nick released his debut recording Barnum Hill, featuring Nick’s own compositions performed by Matt Brewer, Adam Niewood, and other young jazz stars, and produced and engineered by the late, great Tom Bates. Nick has taught workshops in percussion, music theory, and rhythm at Boxwood Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Interlochen Summer Festival, Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance (LAMP), and in other venues around the world.

As an educator, Nick is passionate about making musical excellence accessible to people of all ages and diverse backgrounds, and about helping people to – quite literally – find their voice. Nick is the Founder and Artistic Director of Capella Regalis Choirs, a Canadian charity and performing arts organization offering a unique and completely free music education and professional-level performance training program to children and young adults in Nova Scotia. Nick is also the Assistant Director of Music at the Cathedral Church of All Saints, Halifax, where he co-directs choral services and concerts and assists with pipe organ accompaniment. Nick founded and for 11 years directed The King’s Chorus, a choral society for members of the King’s and Dalhousie University communities in Halifax, where Nick instructed hundreds of university students and staff in the art of singing. Nick was also the Assistant Director of the University of King’s College Chapel Choir from 2008 to 2021, where he helped to build a training program for young choral scholars and co-directed a major annual concert series. In 2012, Nick was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in recognition of his contribution to Canada and Nova Scotia through the arts. For the 2013-14 season, Nick was the Host of CBC’s national radio program, Choral Concert.

Nick’s breadth of experience as a singer, choral conductor, and keyboardist as well as a drummer and percussionist makes him a uniquely versatile musician, equally at home with classical English church music as with traditional jazz, with Brazilian percussion as with North African and South Indian rhythms.