Emily Ellsworth

Emily Ellsworth is artistic director of Anima - Young Singers of Greater Chicago. Under her direction, Anima was the first youth choir to win the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award, jointly given by Chorus America and the American Composers Forum (2009) and the Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence from Chorus America (2008), and also received the 2001 ASCAP award for adventurous programming, and the 2000 U.S. Library of Congress’ Local Legacies Award. She has prepared the Chorus for performances with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Ravinia Festival, and many others for conductors including Bernard Haitink, Claudio Abbado, Sir Andrew Davis, Charles Dutoit, and Sir Georg Solti.  She has conducted the Chorus in appearances with Julia Roberts, Garth Brooks, Dennis DeYoung, and the Canadian rock group Barenaked Ladies; featured broadcasts on Chicago’s classical radio WFMT; seven CD recordings; regional and national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the Organization of American Kodaly Educators, and Chorus America; and concert tours of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, China, South Africa, and Morocco. Ms. Ellsworth serves as advisor for the Opera Workshop series with Boosey and Hawkes Publishers, has over 20 years of university teaching and singing experience, and served several times on the music panel for the National Endowment for the Arts.  In great demand as guest clinician, she leads workshops and festival choirs throughout the United States and in Ireland, England, and elsewhere.  She is the repertoire and standards chair for children’s choirs for the Central Division of the American Choral Directors Association, and earned her master of music degree with honors from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.