EDISON, NOEL  

Noel Edison is conductor and artistic director of two world-class Canadian choral ensembles, the large-scale Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the chamber-sized Elora Festival Singers. He received a disciplined choral education at St Simon’s Church in Toronto as a chorister in one of North America’s leading boys’ choirs and completed his formal education with a music degree at Wilfrid Laurier University.

He has studied with a number of leading musicians including Victor Martens, Helmuth Rilling, Sir David Willcocks, Wayne Riddell, and John Aldis as well as the late Ned Hanson and Robert Shaw. In 2002, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Guelph for his longstanding contribution to choral music in Canada. For his artistic services to the Elora community, Edison received the Prime Minister’s Young Canadian Achiever’s Award in 1982. Since 1984 he  served as Artistic Director of the Elora Festival Singers as well as Organist and Choirmaster of one of the few all-professional church choirs in Canada at the Church of St John the Evangelist in Elora.  In 1988, he established the Elora Festival Orchestra. In 2009 he was appointed to the Order of Ontario, the highest honour bestowed upon individuals by the province which recognizes excellence in any field of endeavour.