Stephen Candow, Director of Music and Organist, has announced his resignation.  He has acheived much in his five years at St. Matthew's and will be greatly missed.

A Search Committee chaired by Michael McDermott is searching for a new Director of Music.  The committee is composed of the rector, representatives from the choirs, parents of choristers, and the congregation at large.  A Position Description may be viewed here. 

We are pleased to share with you the news that the corporation has appointed Barb Hallam-Price as Interim Director of Music at St. Matthew’s, beginning August 1.Barb brings lots of experience to this position and she has worked with our choirs on a number of occasions. 

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Music has been an integral part of life and worship at St. Matthew’s since the creation of the parish in the late 1890s. The church’s reputation for choral music helps fulfill that part of our Vision statement that says we are committed to offering “joyous” worship. Music has the ability to bring us closer to God through a vision of glory not achievable by other means of communications.

St. Matthew’s has been home to a much acclaimed Men and Boys’ Choir since 1956 when then rector Archdeacon Eric Osborne brought Gerald Wheeler, a young British organist, from England to be music director. Under Mr. Wheeler and his successors, the choir has developed into one of the most important in Canada. It is also one of the few in Canada that carries on the centuries-old English Cathedral music tradition.

Top musical directors who followed Mr. Wheeler have included Brian Law (now at New Zealand’s ChristChurch Cathedral), Jonathan Rennert, Richard Dacey, Jeffrey Campbell, Andrew Teague (who created a separate women and girls’ choir in 1990), Matthew Larkin (now at Ottawa’s Christ Church Cathedral) and Christopher Argent (who died of cancer when barely 40 years old). The choirs have also been fortunate that interim music directors such as Desmond Hassell, Kevin Reeves and Bruce Nicol guided them so skillfully for several years.

The present music director and organist is Stephen Candow, whose music scholarships includes studies in London and Dublin. He came to St. Matthew’s in 2005 from St. John’s, Newfoundland, and under his leadership the choirs have continued to flourish.

Interested in singing with the choirs of St. Matthew's? Contact Stephen Candow, Director of Music, at 613-234-5482.

Music Director and Organist Stephen Candow

A native Newfoundlander, Stephen Candow was appointed Organist and Director of Music at St. Matthew’s on Sept. 1, 2005. He holds degrees in performance and music education from Memorial University of Newfoundland and the University of Toronto. He later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, England, and was a participant at the International Summer Organ Academy in Goteborg, Sweden.

He developed his passion for the English choral tradition as a young boy soprano at Newfoundland’s Cathedral of St. John the Baptist, where he was introduced to the organ and received his early musical training. Mr. Candow pursued his love for sacred music as Guinness Organ Scholar at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland, where he participated fully in the Cathedral's busy musical and spiritual life. With the Cathedral's professional ensemble, he toured Ireland extensively and also New Zealand.

Mr. Candow moved to Toronto in 1999 and took the post of Assistant Organist at Metropolitan United (which houses both the largest pipe organ and function carillon in Canada). He has been a choral accompanist for the Toronto Mendelssohn Youth Choir, the Newfoundland Symphony Youth Choir, the Conservatory Boys’ Choir and Ottawa’s Seventeen Voyces.