About

The Elmer Iseler Singers is a professional chamber choir based in Toronto. The twenty-voice choir, conducted by Artistic Director Lydia Adams, was founded by Dr. Elmer Iseler in 1979 and is one of Canada’s leading choral ensembles. The choir has built an international reputation through its concerts, broadcasts and more than fifty recordings. The Elmer Iseler Singers’ repertoire spans five hundred years of choral music. The choir regularly commissions and performs new works, and appears at national and international festivals.

“When I was eight years old to be a spaceman was the most exciting thing I could imagine.” –– Roberta Bondar

In 2017 Dr. Roberta Bondar marks 25 years since she became Canada’s first woman in space. Building on her long-standing relationship and connection with the achievements of Alexander and Mabel Bell, Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site and the Elmer Iseler Singers led by accomplished Nova Scotia native Lydia Adams, Dr Bondar will help Nova Scotia celebrate its significant achievements in the areas of history, arts, science and technology– and how the coupling of art and science that began with Alexander and Mabel Bell continues today and into the future.

High Flight: Songs of the Stars is a multi-media choral performance of sonic splendour combined with captivating photographs and images of space, highlighting music of the spheres by Canadian composers Eleanor Daley, Imant Raminsh, Jason Jestadt, Ruth Watson Henderson, R. Murray Schafer, and Harry Somers, as well as the performance of a work by Lydia Adams, with text by Dr. Roberta Bondar describing her experience of leaving Earth and coming back once again to its sublime beauty. Dr. Bondar will speak at the event about the search in the stars for new possibilities for life on other planets.

Additional Events

A second performance with Dr. Bondar and the Elmer Iseler Singers, celebrating the life and legacy of Mabel Bell, takes place at the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck on Friday, July 21 at 7:30 pm.

The Roberta Bondar Travelling Photo Exhibition, Light in the Land – The Nature of Canada

Opening Reception at Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site in Baddeck on Thursday July 20.
Opening Reception at the Lunenburg School of the Arts in Lunenburg on Friday August 18.

These activities mark a first-time collaboration of Nova Scotia and national partners - the Alexander Graham Bell Foundation in collaboration with The Roberta Bondar Foundation, Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site - Parks Canada, the Elmer Iseler Singers, Lunenburg School of the Arts, Musique Royale and Cape Breton University.

Supported By

The Province of Nova Scotia - Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage’s 150 Forward Fund. The 150 Forward Fund supports opportunities for Nova Scotians to create, promote and participate in local and regional events that build a sense of pride in Nova Scotia during the celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary of confederation. Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.