SingCon 2026 Gathers in Brampton
Over 130 participants assembled to pray, glorify God, and experience their faith together through the liturgical worship and church singing traditions of the Byzantine Rite at the intercontinental sixth annual Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church Singing Conference, better known as SingCon.
This year’s gathering was held in Brampton, Ontario, from 10 to 14 September 2026, hosted by Saint Elias Church, thanks to the efforts of pastor Father Toma Hrywna and the gracious parishioners, with the blessing of Bishop Bryan of Toronto and Eastern Canada. Participants came from all over Canada and the USA, as well as the UK and Europe.
As in past years, the daily schedule for SingCon 2026 included a selection of liturgical worship services, such as Vespers, Matins, the Hours, Divine Liturgy, and Parastas, as well as rehearsals and workshops. The services on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were presided by Bishop Bohdan of the Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma—the “spiritual godfather” of SingCon. The recordings were made by Markian Radomsky’s W4Y Video Productions and are available on the SingCon YouTube channel.
Five general rehearsals, led by Dr. Melita Mudri-Zubacz and Namisha Hlus-Greening, as well as four workshop streams, prepared the participants to learn the chants and melodies of the liturgical services that would be celebrated during SingCon. The workshops were dedicated to the basic melodies and Resurrectional tones for daily Divine Liturgy from the Anthology for beginner level participants; the samohlasen tones for Vespers, as well as the structure of Vespers and Matins for the intermediate attendees; and the special melodies of the podoben hymns and Irmologion and Kyivan chant canon melodies, as well as the history and theology of the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, for the advanced group. A group for children was organized this year for the first time. They painted icons, prepared a play about the fourth-century discovery of the True Cross of Christ in Jerusalem by the Empress Helen, and had chant rehearsals to involve them in singing certain parts of the church services on their own.
A highlight of this year’s conference was the presence of Bishop Erik Varden OSCO of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim, Norway. On Saturday evening, after Great Vespers, Bishop Erik delivered the public Keynote Lecture, entitled “‘He Who Sings Prays Twice’. How?” in which he lamented the loss of singing in contemporary society and providing examples from literature and the arts—including Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky’s pastoral letter from 1941—to encourage renewal and revival in the world today.
The next evening, the assembly celebrated a Vigil on the eve of the Exaltation of the Cross, including the singing of “Lord, have mercy” hundreds of times during the elevation of the Cross by the bishop at the conclusion of Matins—a rite of the Byzantine tradition that hearkens back to the early fourth century. The culmination of the conference was the celebration of the Hierarchal Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Exaltation, presided over by Bishop Bohdan, during which Bishop Erik preached on the history and meaning of the feast of the Cross, comparing how the Byzantine and Latin Rites expound the mystery liturgically in different ways.
The intense schedule of church services, choir rehearsals, and workshops was matched by the exceptional hospitality and gourmet cooking of the parish, with many opportunities for fellowship and singing in the evenings. This year, the traditional Town Hall evening discussion was replaced by “Pints with the Prelate,” a Q&A session on a variety of topics with Bishop Erik, held on Sunday afternoon.
Thanks to the dedicated work of the SingCon OrgCom, the numerous parish and eparchial volunteers, as well as sponsorship from various generous benefactors, most notably from the Archpriest Roman Galadza Legacy Fund and the Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma, SingCon was able to run smoothly and conference registration fees could be subsidized for participants, with numerous scholarships offered to students attending the gathering.
The location of SingCon 2027 will be announced in the coming months.
SingCon Press Officewww.ugccmusic.com
[email protected] Photos by: Markian Radomsky, Julian Hayda, Daniel Galadza
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