Skip to content

History of the Victoria Scholars

Selected highlights from the choir’s history include:

  • December 2023: return to in-person performances post-Covid.
  • March 2020: final in-person performance before Covid.
  • November 2019: presented concert in Niagara Falls as part of the Music Niagara Festival
  • 2017-2018: Silver Jubilee Season culminating in Scholars’ Choice concert with Scholars’ alumni, featuring international tenor and Scholars’ founding member, Michael Colvin, and Canadian baritone Stephen Hegedus.
  • February 2017: presented an hour-long concert at Roy Thomson Hall’s free Choir and Organ Concerts celebrating outstanding Canadian choirs and organists
  • January 2015: fifth CD released, Songs of Love Sacred & Profane, featuring Canadian baritone soloist, Stephen Hegedus
  • December 2013: Classical 96.3FM lobby concert, broadcast several times on Vision TV as part of their Carols of Christmas series during the 2013 Christmas season and subsequent years.
  • December 2009 / December 2012: with Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School presented an hour-long concert at Roy Thomson Hall as part of the Free Noon-Hour Concert series.
  • November 2012: for their 20th anniversary, a second Christmas CD, O Night Divine, with guest solo artists international tenor Michael Schade and Canadian baritone, Stephen Hegedus was released.  The CD enjoys frequent airplay, having attained a No. 6 listing on Toronto’s Classical 96.3FM radio station in 2012 and again at No. 13 in 2013.
  • June 2011: together with Montreal’s women’s choir Concerto Della Donna (under direction of Iwan Edwards), performed Tomas Luis de Victoria’s 26-minute long Requiem and other works in concert as part of Montreal’s Mondial Choral Festival.
  • June 2010: presented hour-long concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing arts as part of the Canadian Opera Company’s Free Concert series.
  • June 2009: released their 3rd album, Distant Voices, an album of all-Canadian music including many works commissioned for, and first performed by, the Scholars.
  • October 2008: special appearance during the Toronto stop of the famed Swedish Men’s Choir Orphei Drängar’s Canadian tour and participated in a choral workshop with OD’s world-renowned conductor Robert Sund.
  • June 2008: two appearances as part of Luminato’s weeklong arts festival.
  • March 2007: special guests of Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in concert at Toronto’s St. Paul’s Basilica, featuring Thomas Tallis’ forty-part motet Spem in alium.
  • November 2006: special guests of the Kyiv Chamber Choir, joining the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Vesnivka Choir in a presentation of Ukrainian sacred music.
  • 2006: joined with Toronto Symphony Orchestra to present Rodney Sharman’s Letters for the Future under direction of Hans Graf to critical acclaim.
  • 2004: performed with Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Barenaked Ladies in Sonic Bloom, a fundraising event for TSO.
  • 2004: recorded with Mary Lou Fallis on Primadonna on a Moose CD
  • 2003: works from the Scholars’ 10th Anniversary Concert broadcast nationally on CBC Radio as part of a programme of all Canadian works, including world premieres.
  • 2002: presented the World Premiere of Srul Irving Glick’s How Beautiful You Are, My Love during International Choral Festival, commissioned with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts; broadcast nationally on CBC Radio.
  • 2001: joined Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and TSO in performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder; presented a special joint concert with Canadian composer/organist Denis Bédard at Toronto Organ Festival 2001, the biennial National Convention of Royal Canadian College of Organists.
  • 1999: chosen by Robert Cooper, Executive Producer of CBC’s Choral Concert, to represent Canada in the equal-voice division of the Let The People Sing International Choral Competition in Hungary.
  • 1996: second CD release, John Edward Ronan’s Tenebrae
  • 1996: first CD release, Christmas with the Victoria Scholars: Carols and Lullabies from around the world
  • 1996: won Canada Council for the Arts’ Healey Willan Grand Prize during the Biennial CBC Radio National Competition for Amateur Choirs.
  • 1995: concert for the Nassau Music Society, Lyford Kay, The Bahamas
  • 1994: participated in Harvard Festival of Men’ Choruses, Harvard University, Massachusetts USA
  • 1994: recorded with Loreena McKennitt on The Mask and Mirror CD
  • 1993/1994: Inaugural Concert Season
  • 1993: Victoria Scholars Men’s Choral Ensemble founded by graduates of Toronto’s St. Michael’s Choir School taking its name from Tomas Luis de Victoria.