Meet Taylor Martin of ELUS Vocal Ensemble in Highlands

Today we’d like to introduce you to Taylor Martin.

Taylor, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
ELUS Vocal Ensemble was founded by Dr. Michael Kornelson in 2012 as the Denver Pro Chorale, consisting of vocalists from all over the Denver Metro Area. Over the course of the last five years, under the direction of Taylor Martin, the group has challenged the boundaries of how performers and audiences interact in a live performance: creating meaningful, thematic programs featuring world-class choral music. As a reflection of this vision, the ensemble embraced a new name: ELUS, an Estonian word meaning “Alive”. ELUS believes that choral music is a living, breathing art form that can transform lives. That performance should engage the listener, and invite them into an experience that is meaningful and will impact their lives outside of the concert hall.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
As a start-up performing ensemble, one of the greatest challenges was expanding our audience. As an ensemble, and as a board, we’ve had countless discussions about how to engage concertgoers from outside our social circles. We’ve put lots of time and energy into identifying new ways of marketing and advertising and building new relationships within the Denver arts community. We always strive to provide the best, most engaging performances for our audiences and hope that once you’ve been with us for a concert, you feel that you are a part of our community. That strong sense of connection between singer and audience is essential to building and maintaining relationships as we continue to expand and grow.

Please tell us about ELUS Vocal Ensemble.
ELUS believes that music can transform lives through meaningful performance experiences. We believe that a classical performance should be an immersive, engaging experience, one that defies expectations, and invites the audience into the experience, as part of the performance. We put a lot of energy and conversation into finding the best way to present our music, and we believe wholeheartedly in the power of choral music to bring positive change to our audiences. Our audiences can expect to be surprised every time they come to a performance. Rarely do we stand and sing, but we involve lights, videos, and movement as some of the many elements to help tell our story.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Once we were able to define our mission clearly, things started clicking. The conversations that needed to happen to get us to that point took time but were very necessary. Some of those things could surely have gone faster and might be one of the few aspects of this journey I would have done differently. With that said, we settled on a mission and a vision that resembled our leadership, our membership, and our audience, and that has certainly proven worth the wait.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elusvocalensemble.com
• Email: elusvocalensemble@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elusvocal/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elusvocalensemble/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/elusvocal

Image Credit:
Amber Parrish Photography

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