Festival Singers of Canada
Websites:
https://www.elmeriselersingers.com/category/history/, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/festival-singers-of-canada
Origin:
Toronto, Ontario, 🇨🇦
Biography:
The Festival Singers was the first professional choir in Canada. Founded in 1954 by Elmer Iseler and known until 1968 as the Festival Singers of Toronto, the chorus reached professional status that year when it became the core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Expanded from 25 singers to 36, the choir performed regularly on the CBC and attracted international attention for their Grammy-nominated work in the early 1960s with Igor Stravinsky. The choir made its US debut at the White House in 1967 and won international acclaim, touring in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Yugoslavia and the USSR. The Festival Singers’ repertoire included music of all periods and styles, but emphasized Canadian choral music, commissioning and premiering many works by Canadian composers. The choir declared bankruptcy in 1979.
Early Years
Founded in 1954 by Elmer Iseler (with encouragement from the singers Tom Brown, Joanne Eaton and Gordon Wry), the 25-voice choir was heard first on CBC Radio in a 1955 Good Friday broadcast of Bach's Christ lag in Todesbanden. Shortly thereafter, billed as the Festival Chorus, the choir gave three concerts at the 1955 Stratford Festival, two of them with the Hart House Orchestra under Boyd Neel. The first of these, on 9 July, offered the premiere of Healey Willan's A Song of Welcome, B58 (commissioned by the festival and with Lois Marshall as soloist) and Britten's Hymn to St Cecilia.
The Festival Singers' first Toronto seasons won them recognition as one of the outstanding choirs of the day. Their concerts, unaccompanied or with a small ensemble, were broadcast often by the CBC. Expanding to 32 voices, the singers attracted international attention for their work in the early 1960s with Igor Stravinsky. They had been engaged by the CBC to perform with the CBC Symphony Orchestra in the network's tribute to the composer on his 80th birthday in 1962; the program included the North American premiere of A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer, and the broadcast premiere of The Dove Descending Breaks the Air. Impressed with their high competence and fine sound, Stravinsky and Robert Craft invited them to participate in recordings of Stravinsky's choral music then being undertaken by Columbia. Their recording of Symphony of Psalms, conducted by Stravinsky, was nominated in 1965 for a Grammy Award. The choir made its US debut in December 1967 at the White House in Washington, DC.
Professional Status
The Festival Singers assumed professional status in 1968 and became at the same time the core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Stabilized at 36 voices, they toured Europe in 1971 and again in 1972 with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Further US appearances included concerts at Lincoln Center in New York on 26 June 1972; Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, on 25 October 1976; and the Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul in Philadelphia on 4 August 1977.
In November 1977, the singers toured in England, West Germany and the USSR. They toured Western Canada in 1974 and 1977, and Eastern Canada in 1975. They also appeared at the Stratford Festival during the summers of 1955, 1956, 1958, 1963–67 and 1974; at the Guelph Spring Festival in 1968, 1973 and 1975–77; the winter seasons of the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake in 1973–76; and at the Montréal Olympics in 1976. At Guelph in May 1976, they sang two sections of Penderecki's St Luke Passion under the composer's direction. Annual concert series were given in Toronto, and at the height of their fame the singers gave about 25 concerts each year on the CBC.
