Monica George Punke was born, raised and educated in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. After a period of time living, studying and singing away from here, she and her husband returned to Pictou County and made their home here.  Monica is a graduate of the University of Kings College and Dalhousie University, Halifax, and the University of Melbourne, Australia. She has been involved with the choral arts since childhood, through church and cathedral choirs; school, university, community and city-wide choir programs; NSCF provincial choral camp and youth choir: as chorister; director; resident conductor; school music teacher, grades P to 12; lecturer; conference presenter; workshop leader and clinician.  These varied experiences, coupled with her private voice teaching, continue to provide her with a forum for exploring and celebrating her love of singing.

Monica directed the Pictou District Honour Choir program for twenty five years. During that time there were many sub-choirs including Chor Omega, Chor Vivace, Chor Alpha and Voicemale, the choir for the young men of PDHC. PDHC won many awards locally, provincially and nationally, performing in various places across this country from Corner Brook to Whistler, BC. Internationally, they were invited to sing at Carnegie Hall, New York City, under the baton of Canadian conductor, Jean Ashworth Bartle. At home, they inaugurated and hosted a choir festival for young singers in SATB choirs known as JUVENATA! – now a youth choir program of the NSCF.

More recently, the Pictou District Honour Choir ended its mandate and morphed into a much smaller and select studio choir known as Seinneadair, Gaelic for Songsters. They have been heard in Truro at the Choirs for Comfort concerts.

Monica is also in her fifteenth season of directing the Trinitarians, an adult choir, for the "mature and young of heart", based at Trinity United Church, New Glasgow.

In addition, Monica runs Voicetime Music Studio for young people who want to learn to sing and study the voice.

Monette Gould is a soprano with many years of professional experience as a performer and teacher. Born in New Brunswick, she later moved to Toronto, Ontario to pursue her studies in music. Monette holds two performance diplomas, an A.R.C.T. and a Per-formance Licentiate, from The Royal Conservatory of Music, and an Opera Perfor-mance Diploma from the University of Toronto.

After completing her studies, Monette returned to New Brunswick to teach voice at Mount Allison University and l’Université de Moncton. She also teaches privately and works with high school students who want to prepare to enter university music pro-grams. Monette is the founder and director of the well-known Voce dell’Anima Choir. She has also taught courses such as Diction for Singers, Sight-singing, Dictation and Aural Skills, and has given workshops on Stage Presence, How to Practice, Options in Music, and How to Set Up a Private Studio. She is highly regarded and is in very high demand as an adjudicator and clinician across the country. Many of her students have excelled, continuing on to some of the best international graduate programs, and win-ning prestigious awards, competitions and scholarships.

Monette has appeared in several opera productions, and her roles include Fiordiligi in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, and Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin just to name a few. In 1998, she appeared as Mimi in Opera New Brunswick’s production of Puccini’s La Bohème. Monette continues an active career as soloist, performing in recitals and concerts throughout the Maritimes.

The human voice being her passion, Monette is dedicated to continually educating herself in the latest vocal techniques, new developments in vocal health, and diction for singers.