About

This June, Musique Royale presents Capella Regalis Choir for two concerts in Pictou and Parrsboro, directed by Nick Halley and Vanessa Halley accompanied by organist Paul Halley. The choir will perform music from their new Sea Songs album, including new arrangements by Paul based on Maritime folk songs such as Petty Harbour Bait Skiff and Farewell to Nova Scotia. The choir will also perform sacred anthems such as They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships. Founded in 2010, Capella Regalis is a Canadian charity dedicated to training singers within a centuries-old tradition, and performing choral music of the highest excellence.

About the Artists

Capella Regalis

A free music education in a centuries-old tradition. Inspiring and accessible professional performances.

Capella Regalis is a Canadian charity dedicated to training singers and to offering excellent choral music presentations to the public. Founded in Nova Scotia by director Nick Halley in 2010 to build upon the best aspects of the centuries-old 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 (including Young Men with recently changed voices). Our children’s choirs are free and open to any child who passes a basic audition.

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.

Annual performances include tour programs of sacred and secular repertoire from across the Western tradition, and the popular, annual Christmas series, A Chorister’s Christmas. In addition, Capella Regalis frequently collaborates with other groups and world-class musicians in productions of major works such as J.S. Bach’s Easter Cantata BWV 4, J.S. Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bizet’s Carmen, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Handel’s Te Deum, Monteverdi’s Selva Morale e Spirituale, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Orff’s Carmina Burana, the Paul Winter Consort’s Missa Gaia/Earth Mass, and Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien.

Capella Regalis has hosted other choirs and performing artists from the local community as well as from across Canada for special projects, and has completed seven performance tours in the Maritimes presented by Musique Royale. In June 2022, the Scotia Festival of Music featured Nick and the boy sopranos of Capella Regalis alongside Canadian violinist Kerson Leong and string orchestra in the Canadian premiere of John Rutter’s “Visions” (a violin concerto written for Leong and boys choir).

Capella Regalis has released four CDs: 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 (visit our Audio and Video pages to view and hear recordings). Capella Regalis has also collaborated with other non-profit organizations on charitable causes in Nova Scotia ranging from nature conservation to food drives, and has given performances hosted by different Lieutenant Governors of Nova Scotia over the years.

In addition to services, concerts, and recordings, the young choristers of Capella Regalis enjoy an annual summer choir camp in the last week of August and other musically and socially enriching outings and experiences.

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.