Growing up in Christchurch, Rosa Elliott completed a BMus and BA at the University of Canterbury, going on to complete her MMus in Composition through the University of Auckland. Rosa’s love for singing began at Burnside High School where she sang as a soprano in Bel Canto. She continues to sing in the Christchurch Youth Choir and currently conducts the Christchurch Girls’ High School choir Cantrices. Rosa’s passion for composing for the voice was kickstarted by winning the SOUNZ Big Sing Composition award in 2015, and she has since been fortunate to have choral works performed by NZ Secondary Students’ Choir and NZ Youth Choir. In 2021 Rosa was named a category winner of the inaugural Compose Aotearoa competition and held a composer-in-residency position with Choirs Aotearoa.

Josh was born and raised in Auckland, fostering his love of singing at Rangitoto College in The Fundamentals Choir. Since then he has gone on to sing in and with community choirs such as Harbour Voices and Camerata, as well as singing in the Auckland Chamber Choir, New Zealand Youth Choir and the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir Pool. He is currently in his final year of his Bachelors of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Auckland.

Born in Wellington, Alex is currently working towards a Bachelor of Music in Classical Performance Voice at The New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī. She attended college at St Matthew’s Collegiate in Masterton, during which time she sang with the NZSSC in 2019-2020. She has sung with the national choirs in collaboration with Eric Whitacre, the NZSO, Voices NZ, Gondwana Choirs and the Toronto Children’s Choir, and recently performed with the New Zealand Opera Chorus for the 2024 season of Le Comte Ory. She is excited to be the Soprano II Section Leader for this cycle.

Benjamin Madden is a proudly born-and-bred Dunedin tenor trained by Pat Scally-Richardson and Judy Bellingham. Since finishing vocal study at the University of Otago, Benjamin has been working as a freelance singer, a choral director and private singing tutor in Dunedin. Ben currently teaches singing and directs choirs for Otago Boys’ High School and Otago Girls’ High School, and teaches instruments (guitar, drums, keyboard and singing) at Abbotsford Primary School and Mornington Primary School. Benjamin has enjoyed the opportunity to work with the New Zealand Secondary Students Choir as a conducting intern, guest vocal tutor and now as Vocal Consultant. Benjamin is an alumni of the NZSSC, the New Zealand Youth Choir, and a current member of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir. Benjamin works with the New Zealand Choral Federation as a mentor for primary school singing leaders as part of their ‘Singing Matters’ programme. Benjamin was delighted to work with City Choir Dunedin in a vocal coach capacity in 2020. Outside of singing and teaching music Benjamin is an avid endurance athlete and rock climber, enjoying running distances up to and beyond the marathon.

Ivan is a Law and Music student at the University of Auckland, studying Voice under Dr. Te Oti Rakena. He was part of the 2019-2020 NZSSC cycle and currently also sings with the Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Auckland Youth Choir, and Auckland Chamber Choir. Outside of choir, he is the 2023 President of the School of Music Student’s Association and has also represented the University in the UNSW Trans-Tasman Case Competition and the UTS Global Case Competition. 

This is Katia, a soprano which is currently based in Wellington. She attends Wellington East Girls College and is very musically involved there. She sings in multiple choirs and aside from singing also plays the oboe and piano. Her other interests include tramping and dancing. This is her first time in NZSSC and is the youngest member in the choir.