The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMC) has just announced the renewal of Jean-Sébastien Vallée’s contract for five years, beginning in the 2026-27 season, through to 2030-31.
The multi-award-winning conductor, scholar and educator took the helm of Canada’s oldest choir as its eighth artistic director in 2021, during a challenging time when the world was just emerging from the pandemic. Vallée’s clear vision has focused on the choir’s vital role in promoting inclusivity, artistic enrichment, and cultural exchange within the community.
Vallée has helped modernize the organization while honouring its 131-year legacy. During his tenure, they have performed the expected choral masterworks like Bach’s Mass in B minor, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, Rachmaninoff’s Vespers and the Requiems of Verdi and Mozart. But Vallée has also programmed repertoire that reflects Canada’s diversity and incorporated multimedia experiences such as dance and video into their concerts.
The conductor has overseen the creation of the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, the choir’s 24-voice core of professional singers that performs with the choir and as a separate chamber ensemble.
A firm believer of nurturing aspiring conductors and composers, Vallée revitalized the annual “Take the Podium” symposium, an intensive five-day program for emerging choral leaders. This is complemented by the Conducting Mentoring Program which includes pre-rehearsal, conducting and rehearsal technique workshops, culminating in a concert performance of a chosen work.
Vallée is deeply committed to championing new Canadian works. Through the composer-in-residence program he established, TMC has commissioned and premiered works by diverse Canadian composers including Tracy Wong, Aaron Manswell, Shireen Abu Khader, and Stephanie Martin.
Community engagement is also dear to Vallée’s heart. He has continued the choir’s Singsation workshops in which guest conductors lead community singers through a selection of choral works. Last year, Vallée launched Exchange: Choral Community Workshops, a full-day event featuring interactive workshops, master classes and lectures, as well as musical community building.
To celebrate TMC’s milestone birthday in 2024, Vallée curated a selection of a cappella pieces ranging from historical compositions to new commissions for a landmark recording, Remember: 130 Years of Canadian Choral Music on ATMA Classique. It contains repertoire spanning from the choir’s 1895 inaugural concert (Mendelssohn’s Richte mich, Gott) to contemporary Canadian works.
Chorister Jan Szot, who has sung with TMC since 2014, praises Vallée’s “passion, energy, and profound respect and understanding of the music and the choral art… His score preparation and analysis is extraordinarily sophisticated and comprehensive. His rehearsals are so joyful and thrilling! And his inspiration and dedication brings out the very best in all of us.”
Kathleen Stevenson, the choir’s director of artistic operations, says that “JS has brought an extraordinary renaissance to our organization and its choral programming, reinvigorating both our singers and our entire team with a shared sense of purpose and excitement. What sets JS apart is his remarkable ability to honour the rich traditions of choral music while making it vibrant and relevant for today’s audiences.”
For the 2025-26 season, Vallée will present well-known masterworks through a renewed lens. This includes Brahms’s German Requiem and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. The conductor notes that “Brahms’s German Requiem was the first work I conducted with TMC in the fall of 2021, during the height of the pandemic. The choir and orchestra performed masked, distanced, and for a reduced audience due to the restrictions. Four years later, the context is completely different, and I felt strongly about revisiting this piece as I begin my fifth season with the organization. The themes in Brahms’ score—grief, consolation, and the acceptance of loss—resonate differently today than they did in 2021, offering fresh meaning for both performers and audiences.
“As for Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, it has not been performed by TMC in more than a decade. Beyond its religious origins, the Passion story embodies profound human drama and suffering that continues to speak to our world today. It is also worth remembering that TMC was the first Canadian ensemble to record the St. Matthew Passion in 1951. The work itself was forgotten for decades until Mendelssohn revived it in 1829. Given that legacy, and our own connection to Mendelssohn, it feels like the perfect piece for us to bring once again to Toronto audiences.”
Vallée is particularly excited that Stephanie Martin, this season’s composer-in-residence, will be writing three new pieces, including Echo, which will be premiered in November as a companion work to Brahms’s German Requiem.
The season also includes a special concert with the TMSingers performing The Sacred Veil, a collaboration between composer Eric Whitacre and poet Charles Anthony Silvestri. “It tells a story of life, love, and loss, inspired by Silvestri’s wife, Julie, who died of ovarian cancer at age 36 in 2005, leaving two young children. This concert will be a powerful human experience, raising cancer awareness, honouring survivors, and remembering those who lost their battle with this illness,” says Vallée.
With a five-year plan to record, tour and commission new works, Vallée’s strong vision is set to cement TMC’s reputation as a leader in Canadian choral music.
