Janelle is the artistic director of Ménestrel, her ensemble with Kerry Bursey which produces alternative early music mixing ancient repertoire with oral folk traditions. Since 2022, Ménestrel has been producing a “Messiah-on-the-go!” congregating twenty emerging performers from across Canada to perform Handel’s masterpiece in historic Nova Scotian venues. Janelle is director of the new series ArtChoral at La Grande Salle du 9e, the recently reopened historic Art Deco venue in Montreal. Following mentor and arts champion Barbara Butler, Janelle is Artistic and Administrative Director of Musique Royale (est. 1985), a music presenter based in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia which enriches historic spaces through the sharing of world class early music, and much more. Programming includes over seventy concerts throughout the year in venues across the spectacular maritime province.
Performing well over a hundred concerts last year, she gave concerts in all of Canada’s thirteen provinces and territories, and was in residency in Europe through the summer. Janelle is Mécénat Musica’s 2025 Vocal Discovery of the Year.
In fall 2022, Janelle was invited by legendary organist Xaver Varnus to perform at his two sold out performances in Hungary, including at the spectacular Bartók National Concert Hall in Budapest. She has had the good fortune of working as a soloist with the Kings College Chapel Choir under five-time Grammy winner Paul Halley on many unforgettable concerts including Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 and Selva Morale e Spirituale and multiple Bach Passions. Janelle graduated in 2014 with distinction from the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles in Belgium and completed her Masters in Management at Durham University in the UK where she was awarded the Best Soloist by Music Durham, and Best Female Soloist by her peers. While in Europe, she formed Voces Desuper, an ensemble performing regularly in the magnificent Cathédrale de Saints-Michel-et-Gudule, notably at the Te Deum ceremony for the King and Queen of Belgium.
