ABOUT
US
The Aeolian Singers, a 40-voice women’s choir based
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have enjoyed 30 years of
music making. The choir has toured Europe twice,
recorded radio and television programs, and
performed many times as guest artists of Symphony
Nova Scotia. The Aeolians’ repertoire spans five
centuries and a wide variety of styles, with a
primary focus on music composed specifically for
women’s voices. The choir has commissioned many
works by well-known Atlantic Canadian composers,
including Scott Macmillan, Gary Ewer, Alisdair
MacLean, Donna Rhodenizer, Laura Hoffman, Dennis
Farrell and Lydia Adams. Much of the Aeolians’
repertoire features other Canadian composers as
well.
The choir began in 1976 under founding conductor
Claire Wall, as a program of Dartmouth Continuing
Education, and is now operated as a not-for-profit
society and a federally registered charitable
organization. The Aeolian Singers are founding
members of the Nova Scotia Choral Federation, and
have received funding support from the Nova Scotia
Department of Tourism and Culture, The Canada
Council for the Arts, Halifax Regional Municipality,
the Craig Foundation for the Performing Arts and
many corporate and private donors.
Currently the choir is under the musical direction
of native Nova Scotian, Jacqueline Chambers, who was
appointed Artistic Director in 1990. A Nova Scotia
Talent Trust scholarship recipient, Ms. Chambers
holds a Bachelor of Music Education degree from
Acadia University and an Artist’s Diploma in Voice
from the University of Toronto. She teaches music
with the Chignecto Central Regional School Board,
and is active in the choral community as a clinician
and adjudicator for workshops and festivals. The Aeolian Singers are accompanied by Hannah Parks (for full biography, please see People section).
In 2002 the Aeolian Singers collaborated with two
other Nova Scotian women’s choirs to create a
Women’s Festival of Canadian Choral Music.; this was
repeated again in 2003 in New Glasgow with the
Carillon Singers and guest conductor Monique
Richard. In the 2002-03 season they were presented
in concert in Parrsboro, and at the “Titz ‘n Glitz”
fundraiser for breast cancer survivors in Halifax.
The choir released its first cd, A Woman’s Voice, in
December of 2003, featuring guest artists
singer/songwriter Susan Crowe and the Blue Engine
String Quartet. A track from their cd was included
on a V-Day compilation CD produced that same year
with other Nova Scotian women artists.
On International Women’s Day 2003 they presented
their first Celebrating Women performance to a
sold-out house at Pier 21 in partnership with the
Nova Scotia Council on the Status of Women in the
presence of her Excellency, Adrienne Clarkson, the
Governor General of Canada, and the Right Honourable
Madam Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin. The concert
featured other Nova Scotian women artists, including
the Blue Engine String Quartet, writer Sheree Fitch,
Susan Crowe, the BFY Dance Dance group, host Olga
Milosevich, singer Tiyaila Cain-Grant and trumpeter
Holly Hartlen. The performance netted $10,600 which
was donated to Canadian Women for Women in
Afghanistan to open a women’s resource centre in
Afghanistan. In March of 2004 the choir celebrated
IWD again at Pier 21, with special guests Mocean
Dance, the Rose Vaughan Trio, cellist Denise Ro,
storyteller Claire Miller and actor Allison
Woolridge, and again donated money to the
Afghanistan project.
The choir has appeared as guest artists on the
Mahone Bay Concert Series in Lunenburg, and made
their first appearance on the Dartmouth Community
Concert Series in 2003.
Their collaborative performance on IWD 2005 with
singer/songwriter Susan Crowe and other artists was
a huge success recorded for broadcast on CBC Radio’s
All the Best. This performance featured actors
Marcia Kash and Martha Irving, and musicians Susan
Crowe, Cindy Church and Lisa Lindo in a tribute to
the life and poetry of Pulitzer-prize winning author
Elizabeth Bishop, who had a lifelong personal
connection to Nova Scotia.
The Aeolians performed as the guests of St. Peter’s
Church congregation in 2004 in Sheet Harbour, and at
the Maritime Conservatory of the Performing Arts in
a special program of music from Christian and Jewish
traditions, titled Her Song Rises. Last season, the
choir was pleased to sing their Jewish repertoire
once again for Shaar Shalom, and to partner with
Nova Voce, Nova Scotia’s men’s choir, for a
performance in November. They celebrated IWD on
Sunday, March 5 at the Rebecca Cohn in a program
entitled Celebrating Mother Earth with guests
soprano Sung Ha Shin Bouey, Ardyth and Jennifer and
Evelyne Benais and El Viento Flamenco.
For the 2008-09 season, their 33rd, the Aeolians are proud to perform at Sharon United Church in Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia (September 28), for Oxfam Canada's celebration of Muriel Duckworth's 100th birthday (November 2), in Halifax (November 22) and in Sackville, NB (November 23) in The War Within: Women and Peace. The choir is planning to record Where I Live in 2009 and tour with this work. They are already beginning preparations for a new commissioned work by Canadian composer, Stephen Hatfield, for the 2009-10 season.
The Singers are one of our best amateur choirs,
and, under director Jacqueline Chambers, they make
a very pleasing sound and sing with disciplined
enthusiasm.
- Stephen Pedersen, Halifax Herald
March, 2004
