FRAN OTA, Minister

Fran was born in Saskatchewan, and grew up in Prince Albert in northern Saskatchewan, and Winnipeg, Manitoba. She holds a Bachelor of Music Performance Degree from the University of Manitoba, and a Master of Divinity from Victoria University in Toronto. She went to Japan in 1970 as a United Church missionary, and soon after married her language teacher, Norio Ota. She and Norio lived and worked in Viet Nam for three years during the war; then Japan, Australia and the United States before coming to Canada in 1984. Fran has worked as an English and Japanese teacher, refugee relief staff, community liaison staff, city commissioner, music director in various Toronto churches, medical research, and administration at the national office of the United Church and the Canadian Council of Churches. She was ordained in 1995 and has served in Grey Presbytery and Don Valley Presbytery. She has been active in Conference committees, particularly Worship, and the Conference Committee on Sexual Harassment. She was Chair of Don Valley Presbytery, and President of Toronto Conference in 2005-2006. Fran currently co-chairs the Pastoral Relations, Oversight and Development Committee of Toronto Scarborough Presbytery. She enjoys reading and crafts, music, cruises and travel, and especially her four children and three grandchildren.

DAVID CHODORIWSKY, Music Director

Originally from Northern Ontario, David obtained a Master of Music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Ottawa where he studied with Stephane Lemelin. Prior to his studies in Ottawa, he was a student of John-Paul Bracey at the University of Western Ontario where he completed his Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance. David's piano studies also took him to the town of Puycelsi in southern France for two summers where he was very privileged to learn from the renowned virtuoso, Cecile Ousset. He has also coached with Anton Kuerti, Jon Kimura Parker, James Anagnoson, Nelson Delle-Vigne, and Jean-Paul Sevilla.

In addition to his training in solo piano, David has developed his collaborative piano skills with John Hess at Western and at the Queen of Puddings Summer Training Programme for Young Artists in 2007. Through these experiences David has developed a particular passion for 20th Century chamber music and song. Recently his efforts culminated in accompanying success at the 2008 Eckhardt-Gramatte Music Competition (Voice) with a third place finish.

David is a freelance pianist in Toronto and is the pianist for Rubato Casual Opera (www.casualopera.com). He will also be serving as Music Director for a production of the opera, "The Happy Prince", in March in Kitchener-Waterloo.

We are delighted to have David as our Music Director.