Karen Newhook-MacDonald
Karen Newhook-MacDonald, originally from St. John’s, NL, is a music educator and choral director with the Halifax Regional Centre for Education. She currently teaches P-5 Music at Harry R. Hamilton Elementary School in addition to being a choral specialist with HRCE’s Halifax Regional Arts. An enthusiastic choral conductor, Karen is the founder and current director of the Cantatrice Ensemble Honour Choir, directs the Harry R. Hamilton School Choir and is the former conductor of the Vocala Honour Choir.
Choirs under her direction have performed at various events locally, nationally and internationally, including performances at Carnegie Hall, the Banff Centre for the Arts and Disney World. Karen is also busy as a clinician and adjudicator at various music festivals and conferences including the Atlantic Festival of Music, Nova Scotia Music Educator’s Association, New Brunswick District Music Educators, Nova Scotia Choral Federation, Kodaly Society of Nova Scotia, PEI Music Educators’ Association, Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, Nova Scotia Department of Education, Halifax Regional Centre for Education and Peter MacDonald Productions’ “Song Circles”. Karen has been involved with several projects offered through the Nova Scotia Choral Federation, including Junior Choir Camp, Children’s Chorus of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Youth Choir, National Youth Choir and Juvenata.
Karen holds a Bachelor of Music Education from Dalhousie University, with a major in voice, as well as a Master of Education from Saint Mary’s University. She has performed with professional dinner theatre companies in both Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, and has also performed at the East Coast Music Awards. Karen has been a choral singer for over twenty years, having sung with choirs in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, and is dedicated to sharing this passion for singing with her choristers. She and her husband Mike, a musician and sound technician, are the proud parents of Cantatrice alumni Taylor and Lauryn MacDonald.