Mrs. Frances Roberts is in her twenty-nine year of teaching at Argyle Secondary, North Vancouver where she currently directs 3 concert choirs, 1 chamber choir and 2 vocal jazz/ chamber ensembles. Over the past thirty years she has also taught for various community organizations: Vancouver Community College, Kamloops Interior Summer School of Music, Coastal Sound Music Academy and has been on the choral/voice faculty of the West Coast Amateur Musicians Family Summer Camp for the past 19 years. In 2013 she was honoured to be selected as the director for the BC Choral Federation’s BC Youth Choir.
Under Mrs. Roberts’ leadership, her senior choirs have toured throughout North America, Europe, the Baltics and China. They have been selected to appear with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Chamber Choir, and to workshop with Robert Sund, Eric Whitacre, “Rajaton”, “ Idea of North” and the “Swingle Singers”. Mrs. Roberts has presented workshops at BCMEA conferences, for the BC Choral Federation, and at the Association for Canadian Choral Communities. She also works as an adjudicator and clinician at festivals throughout BC and Alberta as well as for choral retreats.
In 2014 Mrs. Roberts returned to her alma mater UBC to pursue her Masters in Music degree in Choral Conducting under Dr. Graeme Langager. She was also honoured by the District of North Vancouver for her outstanding work with youth in the community. In 2015, she along with Dr. Langager, Janet Warren and Natassja By created a choral directors’ workshop, “Inspirare”, a summer choral conductors’ comprehensive experience that brought conductors from all over Canada together in Vancouver. She graduated with her Masters in Choral Conducting from UBC in May 2017.
Mrs. Roberts and her school choirs have been participating in the Regional Kiwanis Choral Festival for thirty years and this spring she was honoured to receive the award and scholarship for “Most Inspiring Conductor” in memory of John Trepp, an outstanding high school conductor and former colleague from Magee Secondary.
Mrs. Roberts cannot believe where the time has gone, but looks forward to sharing music and singing everyday with ALL her choir students. She feels very lucky to be able to work in such a vibrant and supportive music community at Argyle, and to work alongside Ms. Diana Chan – band & strings teacher.