Amabilis Singers

Photo credit: Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

Ramona Luengen, a graduate of UBC, completed her Doctor of Music in Composition at the University of Toronto. She is privileged to have had her compositions performed and recorded in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan as well as broadcast on CBC, BBC, WDR (Germany), and the national radio stations of Denmark, Hungary, Sweden and, most recently, Spain. In September 2006 her Piano Concerto was premiered by Jane Coop and the CBC Radio Orchestra in the Orpheum Theatre. 2005-2006 saw over 150 performances of Luengen’s opera for young audiences, Naomi’s Road, based on Joy Kogawa’s novel. Commissioned by Vancouver Opera for its Opera in the Schools Programme, the opera was viewed by over 41,000 students and adults in BC, Alberta, Seattle (Washington) as well as Ottawa’s National War Museum.

In 2006 Luengen received the BC Choral Federation’s Herbert Drost Award for distinguished service and long-term support of choral music in British Columbia and was also nominated in the Arts and Culture Category of the YWCA’s 23rd Annual Woman of Distinction Award. In 2004 she was a recipient of the inaugural Vancouver Arts Award. As a sessional lecturer for over twelve years, Luengen taught a variety of courses in composition, counterpoint, theory, and 20th century music appreciation at both UBC and SFU.

Conductor of the Amabilis Singers since 2006, Luengen is also the choral director at Shaughnessy Heights United Church and has been the Artistic Director of the highly respected Phoenix Chamber Choir since 1995.