A Brief History of Amabile
At the end of the London Kiwanis Music Festival in 1985, local music teachers Brenda Zadorsky and John Barron took their respective choral groups (who had competed against each other earlier that day!), for ice cream at what is now Cherryhill Village Mall. The 27 girls, cones in hand, wandered onto a set of risers and gave an impromptu group performance; their voices blended together so beautifully that day!
That fall, the Amabile Youth Singers were born.
As the Amabile Youth Singers grew, there became a growing interest among young boys. One young boy in particular had two sisters in the Amabile Youth Singers, and when he said he wanted to join, his mother told him he couldn’t because it was a girls’ choir. With this in mind, and ever-growing interest from the community, the boy’s mother set out to remedy that:
Carol Beynon, along with Bevan Keating (the younger brother of Brenda Zadorsky) and 45 eager young boys, formed the Amabile Boys Choir in 1990. Over time, the name of the choir would change to the Amabile Boys and Men’s Choir, to reflect how the boys who joined the choirs often stayed well past their youth.
From those original two youth choirs, the Amabile family of choirs blossomed into the 9 choirs we have today! Both the Amabile Youth Singers and the Amabile Boys Choir expanded to include choirs for all ages, with four choirs devoted to female-identifying singers and four choirs devoted to male identifying singers.
In 2023, the Amabile Choirs of London, Canada updated the names of some of our choirs to better reflect the inclusivity and diversity that we represent. The choirs formerly known as the Amabile Youth Singers, and the Amabile Young Men’s Ensemble became the Amabile Youth Singers - Soprano/Alto and the Amabile Youth Singers - Tenor/Bass respectively.
Even after almost 40 years of choral music-making, the Amabile Choirs of London Canada continue to grow!
In 2024, Amabile introduced our newest choir, Coro d’Argento, which is our choir for persons aged 55+ and is open to singers of all levels of musical ability. With this newest addition to the Amabile family, we truly do have choirs for singers for all ages, and our choristers now range in age from 7 to 97!
With 9 individual choirs, and over 350 choristers, Amabile has certainly grown from the single 27-person choir that we started with in 1985, but we here at Amabile have no intention of slowing down! Amabile continues to strive to bring the joy of choral music to more singers and wider audiences!
