Philip Sarabura - Conductor

Philip Sarabura is a highly accomplished and distinguished musician with three areas of expertise. His early years at St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto provided him with the musical background, education, and experience that would provide a solid foundation for a busy and successful career as a conductor, violinist, and organist.

Although Mr. Sarabura has conducted numerous orchestras and instrumental ensembles in Canada and the U.S., his leadership, for sixteen years, of the McMaster University Choir, and Hamilton’s Bach Elgar Choir, earned him his greatest reputation, as a choral/orchestral conductor of exceptional accomplishment and ability. He has conducted most of the standard repertoire for this combination, consistently to great critical, audience, and musicians’ acclaim.

Philip has conducted a number of Canadian orchestras, including the Hamilton Philharmonic, Orchestra London, Saskatoon Symphony, and the Canada Pops Orchestra. Soloists he has conducted orchestras for are a diverse group, such as operatic bass Robert Pomakov, John McDermott, big-band Sinatra-style crooner Matt Dusk, piano virtuoso Stewart Goodyear, and the Bare-Naked Ladies.

In addition to his conducting, Mr. Sarabura has had a long and successful career as a violinist. Although most of his work is within the orchestra, he has also been very busy as a soloist and chamber music player. Currently with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, an orchestra he has been a member of since 1988, Philip has almost four decades of experience with professional orchestras and ensembles across Canada. In that time, he has played music of virtually every style, from Baroque dance suites to Gershwin to Phantom of the Opera.

Philip is also a distinguished organist. While at St. Michael’s Choir School, he became one of the youngest recipients of an ARCT in organ performance. Since then, he has become a Fellow of the Royal Canadian College of Organists (FRCCO), the highest earned professional certification for organists in Canada. Philip is Organist and Music Coordinator at St. Ann’s Roman Catholic Church in Ancaster, Ontario, a position he has held for over twenty years.

In April 2008, the Brantford Symphony Orchestra appointed Maestro Sarabura as its Music Director and Conductor. He is only the sixth Music Director in the modern BSO’s fifty-seven year history.