Nila Rajagopal

Danielle Sum Photography

Hailing from Ottawa, ON, Nila Rajagopal has quickly established herself as a promising choral conductor. She has an exciting choral season planned and is looking forward to a gradual return to in-person music making.
 
Nila’s collaborative spirit has granted her various positions within the choral world. Highly sought after for her expertise, she was recently appointed Associate Conductor of the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto, Conductor of Training Choir II for the Toronto Children’s Chorus and spends the summer months working with the Mississauga Summer Chorale as Associate Conductor. She has previously held positions with the St. Lawrence Choir in Montreal and the Oakville Choir for Children and Youth.  Increasingly recognized for her promising musical excellence, Nila was the recipient of the 2016 Doreen Rao Choral Award, the 2019 Iwan Edwards Award, the 2019 Ken Fleet Choral Conducting Scholarship and most recently the 2020 Helen Hall Prize.

She attended the Westminster Choir College Conducting Institute in 2017, where she had the opportunity to have masterclasses, lectures and seminars with Simon Carrington, Charles Bruffy, Bruce Chamberlain, Sabine Horstman and Artistic Director James Jordan. In 2017 she also attended the Halifax Choral Conducting Institute where she received instruction from guest conductor Lydia Adams and Artistic Conductor Caron Daley. At the end of the program, she conducted the pretisgious professional Elmer Iseler Singers in concert. Most recently, she has performed in conducting masterclasses with Andrew Megill, Christian Grases, Gabriel Crouch, Dr. Jerry Blackstone and Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt.
 
Nila also maintains an active freelance career as a choral soprano. Widely known for her accuracy and tone, she has held professional positions with Pax Christi Chorale, the Toronto Festival Singers, the Mississauga Summer Chorale, the St. Basil’s Catholic Parish Schola Cantorum and the Choir of Grace Church on-the-Hill. She has sung in the Ontario Youth Choir for five years, the National Youth Choir of Canada for two years and was selected to participate in the 2020 World Youth Choir.
 
Born in a francophone neighbourhood in Ottawa, ON, Nila started learning music at a young age and studied piano, violin, trumpet and french horn. However, she only found her true musical voice when she joined the renowned choral program of the Centre d’excellence artistique de l’Ontario (CEAO) at De La Salle High School in Ottawa. She had the opportunity to tour nationally and internationally with the CEAO and became driven to pursue a career in choral music. She continued her studies at the University of Toronto, where she studied voice with internationally renowned soprano Nathalie Paulin, and conducting with Dr. Hilary Apfelstadt, Dr. Lori-Anne Dolloff and Zimfira Poloz. A passionate lifelong learner, she went on to pursue a Master of Music in Choral Conducting at McGill University under the tutelage of Dr. Jean-Sébastien Vallée. Committed to the future of choral music in Canada, Nila is also Office Coordinator at Choral Canada, Canada’s National Arts Service Organization for choral music, where she takes a key part in planning essential choral programs such as PODIUM, the National Competition for Canadian Amateur Choirs and the National Youth Choir of Canada.

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Danielle Sum Photography