About Capella Regalis
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Annual performances include tour programs of sacred and secular repertoire from across the Western tradition, and the popular, annual Christmas series, A Chorister's Christmas. In addition, Capella Regalis frequently collaborates with other groups and world-class musicians in productions of major works such as J.S. Bach’s Easter Cantata BWV 4, J.S. Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Bizet’s Carmen, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Britten’s Saint Nicolas, Handel’s Te Deum, Monteverdi’s Selva Morale e Spirituale, Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Orff’s Carmina Burana, the Paul Winter Consort’s Missa Gaia/Earth Mass, and Schütz's Musikalische Exequien. Capella Regalis has received many project grants from Arts Nova Scotia and other public and private funding sources in support of its professional presentations. 

Capella Regalis has hosted other choirs and performing artists from the local community as well as from across Canada for special projects, and has itself received performance invitations from presenting venues across Nova Scotia, as well as venues in New Brunswick, PEI, Quebec, and Ontario. In June 2022, the Scotia Festival of Music featured Nick and the boy sopranos of Capella Regalis alongside Canadian violinist Kerson Leong and string orchestra in the Canadian premiere of John Rutter's "Visions" (a violin concerto written for Leong and boys choir). Capella Regalis has completed six performance tours in the Maritimes, nearly all presented by Musique Royale, a performing arts organization with a mission to bring world-class music to venues of architectural and historic significance across Nova Scotia.

Our philosophy: Access to excellence. In 2010, Nick Halley founded Capella Regalis Men & Boys Choir in recognition that the journey to adulthood for boys is a challenge that has garnered the interest of researchers, educators, and social critics over the last few decades. A men and boys choir, with its built-in system of mentorship, is uniquely capable of addressing the issues of leadership, mental focus, and inspiration that boys face at this stage of life. The result of such training is to access some of the greatest music humankind has produced over the last eight centuries.

With the launch of the Capella Regalis Girls Choir in Fall 2022, girls and young women as well as boys and young men are now receiving a free music education in a centuries-old tradition. Capella Regalis is open to any child who passes a basic audition. Although we encourage donations from families who are able to support the program, there is no dues requirement. The choir also provides volunteer-based transportation from school to regular rehearsals for youth who otherwise would not be able to participate.

Capella Regalis is dedicated to performing choral music at the highest level of excellence and to fostering an appreciation of choral music among the general public. The performance mandate of Capella Regalis underpins its educational mandate, as it is through participation in professional-level performances with professional musicians that the youth choristers of Capella Regalis are trained to reach a professional level themselves. Capella Regalis is a registered Canadian charity, a professional arts organization, and an educational outreach program of Musique Royale.