Noel Edison brings a wealth of choral music experience to his new ensemble, The Edison Singers.  For many years he has been recognized as a highly versatile and charismatic conductor, widely appreciated for his skillful interpretive work with both choir and orchestra.

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Born and raised in Toronto, his love of choral music was nurtured as a chorister at St. Simon’s Church which was followed by a music degree at Wilfrid Laurier University.  In 1977, he moved to the village of Elora, Ontario, where in 1979, he co-founded the Elora Festival and, a year later, launched the Elora Festival Singers as its choir-in-residence. From 1984 to 2018, Edison served as Artistic Director of the Elora Festival, arranging a stellar yearly line-up of performances, from large-scale classical works for choir and orchestra which he frequently conducted, to intimate evenings of jazz, cabaret and chamber choral music. During this time, he also served as the Organist and Choirmaster at St. John the Evangelist Church in Elora.

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In 1997 he became the conductor and artistic director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and for twenty-one years he organized and presented the concert season for the choir and rehearsed its performances with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.  He has also been responsible for eighteen recordings of choral music, nine of them on the Naxos label, garnering both Emmy and Juno Award nominations.

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In 2002, he received an honourary doctorate from the University of Guelph for his longstanding contribution to choral music in Canada, and in 2009, he was appointed to the Order of Ontario, the province’s highest honour. In 2012 he was presented with Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee Medal.