CMFAA User Profile

High-energy and innovative voice teacher, singer, and entrepreneur, Elizabeth McDonald has made a commitment to supporting the next generation of operatic artists.
As a faculty member of the University of Toronto, Elizabeth's students have won major awards, including the Metropolitan Opera National Council Competition, and the Canadian Opera Company Competition. Her students are regularly accepted to major graduate programs across North America and the United Kingdom, have received Jacqueline Desmarais Foundation Grants, 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 is a founding member of t Women on the Verge, a powerful trio designed to explore women’s experience through music and to uplift Canadian voices through the commissions and premieres of Canadian music by female composers.

Elizabeth holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Toronto. She resides full-time in Prince Edward County, Ontario with her husband and standard schnauzer Oscar and texts regularly with her two university-bound children.