About Elise Letourneau

photo by Claude Brazeau www.brazeauphoto.com

Elise Letourneau is an accomplished performer, composer, arranger, and educator. She established and directs Vox Eclectica Women's Chamber Choir. Elise is also the founding music director of Capital Vox Jazz Choir, which has been heralded as Canada's first community jazz choir.

With her background in classical, jazz, and contemporary styles, Elise brings a varied palette of sound and experience to her music. An associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre, she composed the winning entries of the 2011 Ruth Watson Henderson Composition Competition and the 2012 ACCC Choral Composition Competition. She received the inaugural Diane Loomer Award. She was shortlisted twice as a finalist for The 2013 & 2014 American Prize in choral composition. Her music has been sung by the Vancouver Chamber Choir, Canada's National Youth Choir, the Toronto Children's Chorus, the Cantiamo Children’s Choir, and others. Her catalogue includes works of new music for voice, choir, piano, string quartet, and winds; as well as an additional selection of songs, big band charts, and hundreds of choral arrangements.

Elise Letourneau has an active performance schedule. She has performed and recorded with a variety of artists including vocal jazz treasure and NEA Jazz Master award winner Sheila Jordan, baritone Marcus Nance, pianist Brian Browne, saxophonist-composer Oliver Lake, pianist Harry Pickens, drummer Roger Humphries, Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist Janet Lawson, performance-poet Huang Xiang, jazzman Bob Dorough, singer-songwriter Paula Cole, pianist Dan Haerle, and the Impressions in Jazz Orchestra. She was selected for inclusion on the Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour artist roster, and has performed throughout the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and throughout Ontario.

Elise instructs students in composition, piano, voice, and flute; and she is on the faculty at Carleton University and Alcorn Music Studios. She is recording her fourth CD. Her publishers include Cypress Choral Music and Diamond in the Square Music. Elise is a graduate of Boston's Berklee College of Music, where she earned her B.Mus. in composition and arranging, and she also studied at Humber College. She earned a M.Ed. specializing in creative arts and learning at Lesley College in Cambridge MA. She lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Please visit www.eliseletourneau.com for more information about Elise and her work.