Music

Music at the Symposium  

Music at the symposium will be co-directed by Joe McDonald (Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ottawa) and Susanne Maziarz (Neighbourhood UU Congregation). This includes a choir for the  Multigenerational Sunday Worship Service. 

Join UUs from across the country to sing in the in-person choir and make memorable music together. Please fill in this form, and Joe and Susanne will be in contact with you.

P.S. This will be the first national in-person choir since 2018!

Choir music is located in this Music folder, and choir members are encouraged to become familiar with this material before the Symposium. 

Choir practice times are:

Joseph McDonald is an Ottawa-based classical and jazz pianist/accompanist. With a Masters in Piano from the University of Ottawa, Joseph has performed for many established classical artists and pedagogues, including Jerome Lowenthal, Andre Laplante, David Jalbert, and Charles Richard-Hamelin. Joseph regularly performs solo classical recitals across Ontario and Quebec, as well as regular gigs as both a solo jazz pianist and as keyboardist in the Brant St. Trio. Joseph also works with both solo singers and choirs across Ottawa, including two choirs under his artistic direction. He continues to take on new musical challenges and endeavors, with an emphasis on live performance and original musical experiences. 

Susanne Maziarz has been the Music Director at Neighbourhood UU Congregation in Toronto since 2007.  She conducts, arranges and composes music,  and accompanies the Spirit Choir, directs and plays bass in the Spirit Band, co-leads the monthly Singing Meditation, and hosts the monthly Talent Night.  

Susanne is originally from Hamilton, ON and has an Applied Music Diploma at Mohawk College and her B.Mus from McGill University and an MA in composition from York University. Since then, she has been active as a dance accompanist and is the assistant conductor of Common Thread Community Chorus, an 80-voice social justice choir aiming to change the world one song at a time.  In 2022, she started the Comfort Choir, which sings weekly at the bedsides of patients in the Palliative Care ward at Michael Garron Hospital in east Toronto. Her rock band, Houndbelly, perform their original songs in local clubs.