our conductor

Mississauga Pops Concert Band is pleased to be under the direction of Colin Clarke, who debuted as the band's Director of Music for the 2006-2007 concert season.

Colin's popularity as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and educator has captured the attention of instrumental and choral ensembles, schools, and music festivals across Canada. Colin is best known as the founder and Artistic Director for the multi-award winning Toronto Youth Wind Orchestra, an organization he established while still in high school. The group has developed a reputation nationwide as one of the leading performance wind bands in Ontario, and Colin continues to oversee the growth of TYWO, TYWO Chamber Winds, Symphonic Brass, and the Toronto Youth Concert Winds. Prior to joining MPCB, Colin served as Artistic Director of the historic Guelph Concert Band, where during his six-year tenure the band's membership tripled in numbers and enjoyed a renaissance as a leading community ensemble.

A recipient of the Clifford Evans Award for Conducting, Colin's credits include collaboration with groups such as the United States Air Force Band of Liberty in Boston, Massachusetts, the University of Western Ontario Symphony Orchestra, UWOpera, the Woodstock Strings and rehearsals with the International Symphony Orchestra in Port Huron, Michigan. In 2004, he traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, to conduct the symphonies of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as a part of the International Conducting Workshop with the highly celebrated New Symphony Orchestra of Sofia, and studied with noted pedagogues Gustav Meier and Rossen Milanov. More recently, Colin made his conducting debut at Carnegie Hall in the spring of 2006. In 2007, he returned to Bulgaria to guest conduct the New Symphony Orchestra at their annual summer festival.

Colin was commissioned by the Coalition of Music Education in Canada to create two settings for wind band to commemorate the Coalition's first annual "Music Monday", a celebration which unites schools across the nation through the performance of the same music at the same moment in time. He has conducted several all-city and honour bands and orchestras across Southern Ontario, and had the distinct honour of being selected to conduct the National Youth Band of Canada in 2008.

Colin continues to establish himself as a prominent voice in music education and maintains a very active schedule as a conductor, clinician, adjudicator, and composer/arranger.