News Releases

Thirty exceptional students from the Children's Music Program of Hamilton's Buchanan Park Public School will be the guests of BMO Financial Group at a Canadian Opera Company special performance of Isis and the Seven Scorpions in Toronto's newly opened Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.

BMO, which is a founding sponsor of the Four Seasons Centre, invited the students to the performance in recognition of their unique achievements and to honour the innovative work of the Buchanan Park Opera Club, comprised of approximately 230 Buchanan Park students in grades one through six who, each year, present an adaptation of one of the operas produced in that season by Opera Ontario. Every child has a job to do in the BPOC opera: singing in the chorus, taking a lead, dancing, acting as supernumerary, or participating in the technical or production crew.

Last week, Buchanan Park received a Music Education Excellence Award from the Kodaly Society of Canada. The award is for embodying the characteristics of a quality music program: specialized instruction in music; music teachers with specialized expertise in music and education; incorporating quality traditional and composed music; and giving students at least 60 minutes of quality music per instructional cycle.

Since 1995, the Buchanan Park Opera Club has produced one major opera adaptation per year, including such notables as La Petite Boheme, La Traviatina, Carmen, Romeo and Juliette and The Little Marriage of Figaro, to name a few. Opening night performances are sold out within days and the five performances each year draw more than 1,000 people in total. The operas are funded by community sponsors and all net proceeds from each Buchanan Park opera production go towards McMaster University's Children's Cancer and Leukemia Research Fund at the Children's Hospital of Hamilton Health Sciences. Since 1997, the BPOC has raised $22,282 for this cause.

The BPOC has mentored students in other Ontario schools and is the only continuous public school opera club in North America. Buchanan Park is the only primary school in Canada to have hosted the world-renowned CBC Opera Quiz. Artistic Director Dawn Martens has appeared with students on local television and radio stations as well as on CBC Radio Ottawa. Features on the club have been in the Globe and Mail, Opera Canada, The Toronto Star, and other educational journals and local newspapers.

PHOTO and VIDEO OPPORTUNITIES:

� Buchanan Park Children's Music Program attending the performance

� Students meeting and speaking with costumed cast members following the performance

INTERVIEW OPPORTUNITIES:

� Dawn Martens, Artistic Director, Buchanan Park Children's Music Program

� Students of the Buchanan Park Children's Music Program who can talk about their personal experiences and growth under the programme.

� Susan Payne, Senior Vice President Corporate Marketing, BMO Financial Group

WHEN:

� 10 a.m. EDT June 23, 2006

� Camera set-up at 9:45 a.m.

� Rehearsal Hall, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Queen Street West, Toronto
(Enter at Queen Street and University Avenue)

� Media must check in with the PR representative at the Box Office.

Accredited media wishing to attend the event are asked to register with the contacts listed below. Television cameras must provide an IATSE clearance letter from your business office upon arrival at the Four Seasons Centre.

A maximum of two (2) minutes of performance footage may be presented on only current affairs and/or news programming within seven (7) days of this performance.

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