Paula Phillips brings over 30 years of experience in performing, teaching and arranging to her vibrant voice studio. Her musical life began with choral singing, and playing piano, clarinet and saxophone. Paula holds a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance, and a Bachelor of Music Education from Dalhousie University, where she was recognized with scholarships in vocal and choral studies.

Paula has numerous solo and ensemble performances and recordings to her credit in series such as Musique Royale, Cecilia Concerts, Indian River Festival, Musique Saint- Bernard, Jubilate Deo Series, and Mahone Bay Summer Concert Series, appearing with Canada’s National Youth Choir, the national award-winning Halifax Camerata Singers, Réjouissance, Dalhousie’s Opera Workshop, and Symphony Nova Scotia. For decades, Paula has enjoyed singing professionally as a soprano with the choirs of First Baptist Church and St George’s Round Church, two of Halifax’s leading church choirs.

A member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and a Nova Scotia Registered Music Teacher, Paula’s teaching experience features 25 years on the Voice Faculty at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts with more than 10 years as Voice Department Head, offering Kindermusik at MCPA and the Montessori Children’s House, teaching classroom and choral music and initiating the band program at the Sacred Heart School of Halifax, conducting choral classes and performances for King’s View Academy, and serving as a vocal coach at Nova Scotia Choral Federation choir camps. Paula also maintains a lively and versatile voice, piano, theory, and early child- hood music studio in Mahone Bay, where for several years she was music director for the Seaside Singers.

Additional leadership activities include founding executive member and current president of Conservatory Nova Scotia, 2021-2022 MCPA Faculty Association president, past president of the Maritime Association of Teachers of Singing, and past board member and choral camp director with the Nova Scotia Choral Federation.

Enthusiastically embracing a range of repertoire from early to contemporary music, jazz and musical theatre, Paula has taught hundreds of students with a glorious variety of goals and dreams. Many have excelled at local, provincial, and national level competitive music festivals, played leading roles in local musical theatre productions, been featured singers at festivals and major events, and received awards for RCM examinations. Her students have gone on to pursue post-secondary studies and careers in vocal performance, theatre, and music therapy. Paula is passionately dedicated to helping others discover and healthily nurture their own life-long joy of creative expression through music.