Elizabeth Sircom

Member, Nova Scotia Registered Music Teachers Association 

ARYO Program Director

Conductor: Introductory Orchestra; Instructor: ARYO Beginner Instrument Clinic

Elizabeth Sircom is a cellist and visual artist. She teaches cello privately as a member of the Nova Scotia Registered Music Teachers Association (NSRMTA). She was recently named NSRMTA’s 2025 “Teacher of the Year”.

Growing up in Hantsport N.S., Elizabeth Sircom studied cello and piano through the Royal Conservatory and actively engaged in choral singing (school and church choirs, musicals, and the University of King’s College Chapel Choir under David and Helen Buley). She was a cellist in the Nova Scotia Youth Orchestra under Robert Raines. Her studies of languages and Fine Arts took her to Paris, France, and then Normandy, where she married and spent 20 years working as a professional artist and art teacher.

In 2012 she decided to make more time for music in her life and spent a year at the Le Havre Conservatory of Music and Dance (Conservatoire Arthur Honegger), studying cello and chamber music. She returned with her family to live in Nova Scotia in 2013 andresumed studies in cello and cello pedagogy, string methods and chamber music, with Dr. Christoph Both at the Acadia University School of Music. She plays regularly with the Acadia University String Orchestra and the Conundrum String Quartet and performs as a duo with pianist Heidi Jury. She plays with Nova Sinfonia in Halifax, and fills in as a cellist as the opportunity arises in the local community (Four Seasons Orchestra in Windsor, pit bands for musicals…).

From 2016 to 2018 she was the cello instructor for the HCYO strings program at Horton High School. She was cello instructor and outreach coordinator for this program under its new name of Acadia Regional Youth Orchestra (ARYO), located at Festival Theatre in Wolfville during the 2018/19 season and has been the Program Director since the 2019/20 season.

Keigan Richard

Conductor: ARYO Orchestra; Instructor: ARYO Second Level Clinic

Keigan Richard is the conductor of the Acadia Regional Youth Orchestra, and is a violinist based out of Hantsport, Nova Scotia. Beginning violin lessons at the age of 7, his passion for classical music has followed him in all periods of his life. He is a graduate of the music program at Acadia University, receiving his BA in Philosophy and Music in 2023 under the tutelage of Jennifer Jones. Keigan was the concertmaster of the Acadia University Orchestra from 2019-2023, as well as concertmaster of the NSYO in the 2020-2021 season, and was a founding member of the Conundrum String Quartet. Aside from live performance, he has been honored to lend his sound to various recording projects in genres ranging from folk to punk rock. 

 Aside from his instruction through the ARYO, he is also pedagogically involved with the Valley Music Studio, where he currently teaches private and group lessons. Having previously been entrusted with the ARYO’s Beginner String Clinics and the Beginner Orchestra, Keigan has had the pleasure of teaching at a variety of skill levels in both individual and ensemble environments.

When he’s not teaching Keigan can be found reading, working on his piano and vocal technique, playing pit bands for local theatrical productions, and learning new chess tactics.

Jasmine McMorran

Fiddle Group Instructor since January 2024

Nova Scotia Registered Music Teacher (RMT) in piano and traditional music (fiddle; music researcher and accompanist

Jasmine McMorran holds a Bachelor of Music (piano performance) from the University of Lethbridge and a Masters of Arts (Ethnomusicology; the study of music in a sociocultural context). She is an accompanist for community choirs, and an active and dynamic pianist, fiddle player, researcher, and educator Her studio is located in Cambridge, N.S. and she offers lessons for both piano and fiddle.

​FORMER FACULTY:

Margaret Whitehouse, ARYO Orchestra, 2nd level Clinic, 2023-25

Klorissa Farnsworth, ARYO Fiddle Group 2021-22

Keigan Richard, ARYO Orchestra, ARYO 2nd Level Clinic 2020-2022

Jaya Paquette-Jager , 2nd Level Instrument Clinic, ARYO Fiddle Group 2020-21

Allison Ernst, 2nd level Instrument Clinic, Fiddle Group, ARYO Orchestra 2018-2020

Shawnee Paul, ARYO Fiddle Group 2019-2020

Dr. Gillian Smith, DMA : founding Program Director and conductor of ARYO