Elektra Women’s Choir from Vancouver, Canada has been a leader among women’s choirs since 1987. Its mandate is “to inspire and lead in the choral art form through excellence in performance and the creation, exploration, and celebration of women’s repertoire.” Under the direction of Artistic Director Morna Edmundson, the 45-voice adult choir is known for its adventurous programming, seeking out music written specifically for women and frequently commissioning new works.
Elektra delivers its mandate through an annual concert series including new and commissioned works and featuring outstanding guest artists. In addition to performing worthy repertoire from the past, Elektra has commissioned over 100 compositions and arrangements. The choir’s recordings extend the reach of its repertoire internationally with many first recordings of new music. Elektra’s 17th CD, Fire Flowers was released in 2020 and features music from Canada and around the world. Elektra’s website offers a permanent repertoire resource featuring all works programmed by the choir to date.
Elektra’s celebrated community engagement programs encourage, train, and mentor the next generation of singers, conductors, and composers. Every three years, it hosts Tapestry International Celebration of Women’s Choirs, a festival where meaningful interaction and sharing of repertoire are the key goals.
A multiple national prize-winning ensemble, Elektra has been honoured to perform at conferences of Choral Canada, the American Choral Directors Association, Chorus America, the International Society for Music Education, as well as the International Federation for Choral Music , where it appeared at the World Symposium on Choral Music in Sydney (1996) and Barcelona (2017). In the summer of 2018, Elektra was one of five choirs from across the country to perform in “…float…”, Choral Canada’s unique, outdoor immersive performance experience, funded by the Canada Council’s New Chapter program. In 2022, the choir released Teachings of the Water, a collaborative project with First Nations educators and knowledge-keepers from Canada’s West Coast.
In October 2022, Elektra presented its most ambitious commissioning project to date: The Lost Words: A Spell Book. 10 Canadian composers have set two spells each from the bestselling book celebrating nature, children, and language by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. In June 2023, Elektra brought The Lost Words: A Spell Book to the UK, including performances in Peterborough, Cambridge, and London. A digital concert of the same performance is available on our website here.