Kathryn Whitney, Interim Artistic Director
Kathryn Whitney is a singer, choral conductor, artistic director, voice teacher, and arts entrepreneur based on Southern Vancouver Island. She is the founding Artistic Director of the SING THE NORTH global family of choirs, the One World Baroque Virtual Orchestra & Chorus (created in 2020 with Music Director, Daniel Taylor), the Pacific Song Collective, and the SongArt Performance Research Group (London). Kathryn is also music director of the Newcombe Singers of Victoria and the Via Choralis Chamber Choir.
Raised in Victoria, she trained at Oxford (DPhil in music aesthetics), the Guildhall School of Music (PGDip Early Music Performance) and the University of Toronto (BA in Music & German). Artist in Residence at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama (Walton Fellow), King’s College, London (Visiting Performance Fellow), and Wolfson College, Oxford (Creative Arts Fellow), she has performed across Canada, the UK, and Europe.
Experience as a chorister and soloist includes concerts with Budapest Chamber Opera under Pál Németh, the Monteverdi Choir & English Baroque Soloists under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Munich Bach Choir under Hans-Joerg Albrecht, the Whitstable Choral Society under David Flood, plus 10 years of weekly singing in Oxford Chapel Choirs. Locally, Kathryn has sung with the Sooke Philharmonic, Victoria Choral Society, Victoria Philharmonic Choir, Palm Court Orchestra, and Victoria Baroque as well as many choirs around the city.
As a choral clinician for the BC Choral Federation, she has worked with dozens of amateur and semi-professional choirs across the province. She has prepared symphonic choruses for Daniel Taylor, Laurence Cummings, and Steven Devine, and in summer 2024 will be presenting the Mozart Requiem with Howard Dyck. A champion of new music, Kathryn has performed more than 50 world premieres, the majority of pieces written for her voice. Commissions she has instigated include works now published internationally, including with Cypress Choral Music and Novello. Prior to moving over to performance work, Kathryn was a college lecturer in music history & aesthetics at Oxford University for 12 years, with concurrent appointments at Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music in London.
Above all, Kathryn loves working with amateur singers, whether as a conductor, a maker of musical projects, or as a voice coach in her private studio. She hopes you enjoy singing with us or attending our concerts, and she wishes you well in your music-making.
Dr. Elizabeth MacIsaac, Artistic Director (on leave)
The founder and Artistic Director of Ensemble Laude, Dr. Elizabeth MacIsaac has directed choirs of all ages in Canada, France and the United States. Her mission with all groups she directs is to build community: both within the ensemble and in outreach to youth and audience alike.
Dr. MacIsaac lived in Europe for many years, studying, performing and teaching music. Upon her return to Canada, MacIsaac joined the faculty of the Victoria Conservatory of Music in British Columbia. Artistic Director since 1999 of the Canadian women’s choir Ensemble Laude, the ensemble has garnered many awards at competitions held across Canada. The auditioned ensemble blends seasoned soloists with amateur vocalists and is inclusive of women of all ages and skill levels.
In 2018, she completed her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Washington in Seattle, graduating summa cum laude. Deeply involved in both the local and international choral communities, she has traveled widely to lead vocal clinics and choral workshops. This past year, MacIsaac taught choral pedagogy at the University of Victoria and traveled to the Choralies Festival in Vaison-la-Romaine to conduct several of her choral arrangements. MacIsaac presented and performed her dissertation transcriptions of motets from the Ursuline Archives of Quebec with noted Canadian soprano Suzie LeBlanc for the Orford Chamber Music Festival, Quebec, and at the Ursuline monastery of origin in Quebec City. MacIsaac’s dissertation research re-discovered lost and historically significant choral Baroque repertoire recognized to be Canada’s first Baroque polyphony. MacIsaac has presented papers, conducted choirs and performed as soloist across the globe (Wales, France, Hungary, England, Ireland, Germany, the USA and Newfoundland). Amongst several awards for her choral work and research, MacIsaac has received two distinctions from the BC Choral Federation: most recently the Amy Ferguson Award (2017) for outstanding choral direction fostering excellence in superior vocal practice. Dr. MacIsaac also teaches at University of Victoria.
Photo Credits: Ian Bullen 2019