Elmer Iseler

Education Elmer Iseler was born in 1927 in Port Colborne, Ontario, the son of a Lutheran minister. He studied piano and organ as a youth. In 1945, he enrolled in Waterloo College, an offshoot of Waterloo Lutheran Seminary that later evolved into Wilfrid Laurier University. There he studied organ and church music with Ulrich Leupold.

Iseler transferred to the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto to finish his degree, graduating in 1950 with a Bachelor of Music. He then studied at the Ontario College of Education (now Ontario Institute for Studies in Education). While at OCE, he conducted the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the university's All-Varsity Mixed Chorus. He was awarded the Order of Ontario in 1995. In 1997, he was named a Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music and an adjunct professor of Choral Music at the University of Toronto, where the Elmer Iseler singers became the official choir-in-residence. Following Iseler's death, the university created the Elmer Iseler Chair in Conducting.