Vocalypse Productions

Vocalypse Productions is a non-profit society based in Halifax, Nova Scotia with Janice Isabel Jackson, soprano in the role of Artistic Director.  Vocalypse Productions creates, commissions, and presents unique and exciting musical events which expand the boundaries of contemporary classical music including: new opera, art song, improvisational vocal music which include extended vocal techniques. All musical genres are fair game for the Vocalypse Productions’ imagination, but the emphasis is on contemporary and experimental forms, including notated music, graphic scores, spoken word, and free jazz.  Other possibilities include the collision of popular and/or world music with contemporary classical vocal repertoire. 

Vocalypse Productions also organizes educational efforts with master classes and workshops for singers and presents an annual new opera program entitled Opera From Scratch in which 6 singers and 6 composers come together to perform six new mini operas concerning Nova Scotian history, culture, and legend.

Since its inception Vocalypse Productions has produced over 50 concerts and productions which have included many Canadian premieres.

Our productions have been generously supported by:

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Janice Isabel Jackson

Artistic Director, Vocalist, Improviser, New Music Specialist

Janice Isabel Jackson has sung over 230 world premieres, many works written specifically for her, and performed with contemporary music ensembles and in modern music festivals and concert halls around the world – Beijing, Paris, Avignon, Vienna, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Torino, Toronto, Montreal, New York, Berlin, Cape Town, Johannesburg and more.  In practicing her craft, Jackson has worked extensively as an improviser, and mastered a wide range of extended vocal techniques.  She has also taken part in many visual arts based projects either as a recording artist for sound sculptures, a muse for art film, a participant in performance art projects, and music based art gallery installations. 

She is also the Artistic Director of the Halifax based contemporary vocal music society Vocalypse Productions, through which she has produced and performed in many new works including: Vonda de Ville in Temporal Follies (2008) by Lukas Pearse, a jazz opera by New York’s D.D. Jackson entitled Trudeau: Long March / Shining Path (2009), 3 new mini operas entitled HOWL (2013) based on Ginsberg’s famous rant, Miss Fortune’s Portmanteau (2014), a one hour show concerning women from Victorian Halifax, Montreal Tim Brady’s new opera Ghost Tango (2015), and Escape to Freedom (2019) by Halifax’s Sandy Moore concerning the Mona Parson’s escape from a Nazi work camp. In 2019 she created and premiered a performance art piece called Voice Dance II – Tectonic Shift, with metal smith John Little’s fantastical sound sculpture in Upstream Music’s Open Waters Festival in association with Vocalypse Productions.

Her duo, Newfangled, with pianist Barbara Pritchard focuses on new Canadian compositions for voice and piano. In 2018 – 2019 she performed extensively throughout France in CO2 Cycle de Lieder, a multimedia project by Belgian composer Patrick Defossez, which combined stunning live video graphics with rare and exotic instruments. 

In 2018, Jackson was honored with the Friends of Canadian Music Award through the Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre. She has also received an Established Artist Award from the Creative Nova Scotia Leadership Council and an award from the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia for her contribution to Nova Scotian culture. Jackson continues to gain support for her activities through grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Nova Scotia.

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