Dr. Elaine Choi (D.M.A.) contributes to Toronto’s vibrant choral community as a conductor, educator, adjudicator, chorister and collaborative pianist. Elaine currently holds positions as Director of Music at Timothy Eaton Memorial Church, Artistic Director of Pax Christi Chorale and Founder & Artistic Director of Babεl.
As a music educator, Elaine was a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto from 2015-2023, as conductor of the Soprano-Alto Chorus. Currently, Elaine is active as an adjudicator and a clinician for various community events, such as the 2023 Junior Treble Festival, TCDSB music festival, Toronto Kiwanis Music Festival, and OMFA provincial festival. In 2022, Elaine travelled to Thailand as the headline guest conductor for the Bangkok International Choral Festival. This season, Elaine is the guest conductor for the Windsor Choral Festival, a clinician for ChorFest 2024 in Saskatchewan, and adjudicator for the Ontario Vocal Festival. She has recently been named conductor of the 2024 Ontario Youth Choir.
Elaine is an advocate for Chinese orchestral and choral music. She was the conductor of the Toronto Chinese Orchestra from 2010-2017, and currently continues her connection as Guest Conductor and Educational Outreach Representative. In 2018, Elaine founded Babεl, an SATB choral ensemble with a mission to bridge cultures through choral music. The ensemble worked with more than 200 musicians in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau in its inaugural tour in 2019 and was featured in the Canadian Opera Company showcase series in 2023.
Elaine holds the degrees of Doctor in Musical Arts and Master in Music Performance (Choral Conducting) from the University of Toronto, under the tutelage of Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt and Dr. Doreen Rao. She is a four-time recipient of the Elmer Iseler Fellowship in Choral Conducting (2008, 2009, 2014, 2015), a finalist for the Sir Ernest MacMillan Foundation Fellowship Award in Choral Conducting (2012), and was the 2018 recipient of the prestigious William and Waters graduating award. In December 2023, Elaine was awarded the Ontario Arts Council’s Leslie Bell Prize for Choral Conducting.
