Education
- MMus, Eastman School of Music
- Performer's Certificate, Eastman School of Music
- BMusPerf, University of Toronto
Biography
High-energy and innovative voice teacher, singer, and entrepreneur Elizabeth McDonald has committed to supporting the next generation of operatic artists. As a faculty member of the University of Toronto, Elizabeth teaches applied voice to undergraduate and graduate-level singers and is the instructor of the second-year voice performance course, Topics in Performance Studies (PMU230Y)
Elizabeth's students have won major awards, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition, the Canadian Opera Company Centre Stage Competition, the Sylvia Gelber Music Foundation Award, the Art Song Preservation Society Competition German Lieder Prize, the American National Opera Association Vocal Competition, the Eckhardt-Gramatté Competition.
Her students have been young artists at the Canadian Opera Company, the Metropolitan Opera Lindeman Program, LA Opera, and Vancouver Opera as well as been accepted to prestigious summer programs including the Ravinia Festival, Aspen Opera Theater, The Franz Schubert Institute, and the Stern Fellowship Program at SongFest.
Elizabeth’s students are regularly accepted to major graduate programs across North America and the United Kingdom and have received Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation Grants, the Norcop Prize in Song (UofT), the Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award (UofT), the Metcalf Foundation Performing Arts Internship and been featured on the 2016 and 2017 CBC's annual list "Hot 30 Under 30 Classical Musicians."
As a principal and co-founder of the creative facilitation coaching practice em2CONNECT, Elizabeth offers consulting, grant writing, event production, and career development mentorship for arts organizations and individual artists.
A young artist with both the Santa Fe Opera and the Canadian Opera Company, Elizabeth understudied and performed several major roles including Elettra in Mozart’s Idomeneo, The Woman in Schoenberg’s Erwartung, Miss Jessel in Britten’s Turn of the Screw, and Jenufa in Janecek’s Jenufa. She has appeared with the National Ballet Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, and the Kingston Symphony and was a regular recitalist having been featured at Virginia Polytechnic University, Eastman School of Music, the Off Centre Music Salon in Toronto, the Prince Edward County Chamber Music Festival, the Civic Morning Recital Series in Syracuse, NY, the American Cathedral in Paris, and the Maison des étudiants canadiens in Paris. In the studio, she has recorded Canadian composer Martha Hill Duncan’s Singing in the Northland with pianist Kathryn Tremills.
A 2012 participant of the prestigious NATS Intern Program Elizabeth has served as an adjudicator for major music festivals across the country including the 2022 Alberta Provincial Music Festival, the 2019 Newfoundland Provincial Music Festival, the 2018 National Music Festival, and the 2017 New Brunswick Provincial Music Festival. She has conducted master classes at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Bemidji State, Carlton, Lakehead, Lethbridge, Texas Tech, Western, and Queen’s Universities.
Elizabeth graduated from the Eastman School of Music with a Master of Music in Performance and Literature and was awarded a Performers’ Certificate. She holds a Bachelor of Music in Performance from the University of Toronto and has trained at the Banff Centre for the Arts in the Dramatic Integration Program, the Britten-Pears School in Contemporary Song Literature, the Orford Arts Centre, and the Vancouver Early Music Festival.
Elizabeth resides full-time in Prince Edward County, Ontario with her husband and standard schnauzer Oscar and texts regularly with her two university-bound children.
www.elizabethmcdonald.ca
www.em2connect.com
See a recent interview with her UofT Studio here (link: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=570762917061672)