Laurier music professor Leslie Fagan is appointed to the Order of Canada

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Leslie Fagan, Laurier music professor, has been appointed to the Order of Ontario.

Fagan is the coordinator of the voice program at Laurier’s Faculty of Music and a world-renowned soprano.

The Order of Ontario is the province’s highest civilian honour and Fagan is among the 23 new members of the order this year.

The new members of the Order of Ontario were announced on Jan. 29, 2018.

The ceremony to appoint Fagan and the other new members will take place Feb. 27, 2018, at the Ontario Parliament Building in Toronto.

Elizabeth Dowdeswell, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, will present the new members with a medal, official pictures will be taken and then a celebratory dinner will take place.

“I don’t think that anybody receives this sort of order on their own,” Fagan said.

“I would not be receiving this order if I wasn’t surrounded by a supportive community and a deeply loving family.”

The award is in recognition for excellence of service and to honour what members have contributed to society, within Ontario, their community, across the country and, in some cases, around the world.

Fagan will be receiving the honour along with others who have made medical innovations, first nations elders, Michael Lee-Chin and more.

Fagan grew up in a musical family and her father Gerald Fagan received the Order of Ontario in 2011 and the Order of Canada in 2016 for his work as a choral and orchestra conductor in London, Ont.,. and internationally.

“When I look at those people and look at what they have contributed I’m unbelievably humbled to be in their company,” Fagan said.

Fagan has an established international singing career and has sung at Carnegie Hall in New York, Royal Albert Hall in London, England, and many stages across Europe and the Middle East.

“I’m at the point where I have learned from some of the great masters in the world and I have the privilege now of sharing that with the next generation of singers,” Fagan said.

Fagan has also contributed work to the Legacy Project along with Lorin Shalanko, to further the exploration of Canadian art song. Working to record many Canadian songs written in the classical tradition, so Canadian music can become celebrated in its classical form.

“The [songs] come from all across this country and they represent the diversity that we as a culture have and celebrate in Canada; our goal is to record as many of those beautiful songs as possible,” Fagan said.

Fagan has been singing since she was 15 years old.

“I grew up in a very musical family, there was always singing in the household,” Fagan said.

Since, she has worked with many great international singing teachers including, Madame Irene Jessner, a soprano vocalist who has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, and Ileana Cotrubas a Romanian soprano who has sung at all major opera houses and many more.

“Many of the best teachers in the world I’ve been able to work with,” Fagan said.

Fagan grew up in a musical family and her father Gerald Fagan received the Order of Ontario in 2011 and the Order of Canada in 2016 for his work as a choral and orchestra conductor in London, Ont.,. and internationally.

“It’s a little bit surreal but completely humbling,” Fagan said.

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