The Elmer Iseler Singers posing for a photo on a deck overlooking the lake.

Elmer Iseler Singers

Sunday, April 28, 2024 @ 7:00 PM,
Gravenhurst Opera House

The JUNO Award winning Elmer Iseler Singers (EIS), conducted by artistic director Lydia Adams since 1998, is singing its 45th Concert Season in 2023/24. This 20-voice professional choral ensemble, founded by the late Dr. Elmer Iseler in 1979, has thrilled audiences internationally, and led the way in developing exciting new choral works and experiences, building a stellar reputation in Canada, the United States and abroad, performing a wide range of repertoire with a focus on Canadian composers.

EIS presents a concert series in Toronto each season, and the choir is featured as guest artists and collaborators with many professional colleagues, including Esprit Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Gryphon Trio, among others. The EIS tour regularly throughout Canada, East, West and North, engaging community singers and conductors of all ages through workshops and concert performances. Most recently, the EIS and TSO received a 2019 GRAMMY nomination and 2019 JUNO award for their Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Chandos CD recording, with Peter Oundjian conducting.

The Elmer Iseler Singers are dedicated to the education of emerging choral singers, conductors and composers, and sponsor conducting and compositional workshops, as well as the James T. Chestnutt Scholarship, a choral mentorship with Lydia Adams and the Singers. The Singers are thrilled to have joined with the VIVA Singers as Associate Choirs. This collaboration will include an ongoing mentorship model and we are delighted to share the skills and knowledge of the Elmer Iseler Singers with the VIVA Singers and their stated aims of performance artistry, vocal music education, inclusion, leadership and mentoring, and community.

One of them is a Muskokan :

Amy Dodington joined the Elmer Iseler Singers in the Fall of 2012. Her musical family has had a long association with the EIS since the days of the Festival Singers. Originally from Port Carling, Muskoka, she moved to Toronto in 1996 to study Zoology and then Voice Performance at the University of Toronto. She then studied privately with Monica Whicher. Amy is now a freelance soloist regularly performing concert works and giving eclectic solo recitals. As a soprano soloist and section lead she sang for seven years with the Toronto Chamber Choir, sixteen years at Kingsway-Lambton Church, and is currently at Fairlawn Avenue United Church under Eleanor Daley. Amy’s extensive choral experience includes the Ontario Youth Choir, the Hart House Chorus, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, the Oriana Singers, Helmuth Rilling’s Stuttgart Festival Ensembles and Soundstreams Choir 21.

E I S Artistic Mission Statement

The Elmer lseler Singers perform and promote outstanding choral music with inspiration, innovation, passion, leadership and creativity. We are a Canadian professional chamber choir performing choral music at its highest level for audiences in Toronto, provincially, nationally and internationally. 

We hold a passion for education, inclusion and social justice in presenting music which will bring people together through the power of choral music.

The Elmer lseler Singers’ purpose is to be a leader in the development of professionalism in choral music in Canada for the betterment of communities, through participation and performance, enhancing lives through singing. The organization’s goal is to accomplish this by:

Performing great music at the highest level which will inspire both the singers and our audiences
Offering opportunities to hear choral music of the highest quality through live performances in Toronto, in Ontario, in other parts of Canada and internationally
Seeking the creation of new works for performances in both the Canadian and international choral arenas
Providing educational opportunities for emerging professional singers and conductors
Partnering with recording companies, music publishers and other arts organizations

Reception at 6:00 PM in the Trillium Court