The Aeolian Singers

The Aeolian Singers, a 40-voice women’s choir based in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have enjoyed close to 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’ accompanist Barbara Pritchard is one of Canada’s finest contemporary pianists. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, the Eastman School of Music, Miss Pritchard was a faculty member at the Banff Centre for the Arts and has taught courses at Dalhousie University in Halifax.

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 a sold-out show, “Celebrating Women,” 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.

The Aeolians once again celebrated International Women’s Day in March of 2004 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, and was recorded for future broadcast on CBC Radio’s All the Best. This performance added actors, musicians to the cast, 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 October 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. For 2005-06, the choir is pleased to be singing their Jewish repertoire once again for Shaar Shalom’s concert this fall, and to partner with Nova Voce, Nova Scotia’s men’s choir for a performance on November 26. As well, they will celebrate IWD on Sunday, March 5 at the Rebecca Cohn in a program entitled Celebrating Mother Earth.

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)
 

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