About Us
Our choir brims with a love of music and a desire to bring our best to each other and to the world. We build inspiring programs, encourage choristers and audiences to explore and embrace the timelessness of music. We cultivate curiosity, a flourishing love of harmony and a widening of choral repertoire.
Canticum has had the opportunity to sing with a variety of conductors who have all brought a richness to the singers' experience through their incredible talent, unique musical styles, and repertoire selections. Past conductors include John Wiens, Scott Reimer, Janet Peters, and Alisa Wiebe, each having shaped the community with their love for choral singing. We are thrilled to move into the 2025/26 season with Sandra Bender.
Artistic Director & Conductor
Sandra Bender
Sandra Bender (she/her) is a human rights educator, former opera singer, ongoing voice teacher and choral conductor. She serves as the Community Engagement and Education Program Coordinator with the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, where she gives educational presentations to organizations across the country on the history and ongoing legacy of the residential school system. She has conducted choirs with First Mennonite Church, St. Margaret’s Anglican, Holy Trinity Anglican (Winnipeg), Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Québec City), and New Earth Voices (McGill University). Sandra also co-produced and was a soloist in Messiah Queered, a production of Handel’s Messiah performed through a 2SLGBTQIA+ queer lens in 2023. She has given over 30 solo recitals and enjoys concert programming immensely. When she is not giving presentations or running rehearsals, Sandra finds herself in forests and the occasional mountain, or catering to the whims of her dachshund nephew, Roddy.
Executive Director & Manager
Anita Durksen is a health and social policy researcher at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and the University of Manitoba who also loves to sing with other people. Anita has sung in many choirs since she was a child, including church choirs in Winnipeg and Montreal in both Mennonite and Anglican settings, as well as the Mennonite Festival Chorus, and, of course, Canticum. Anita has organized and coordinated all things Canticum since its inception in 2018 and is grateful for those who have helped make Canticum a community.