Ellissa Sayampanathan

Ellissa Sayampanathan is a Singaporean conductor and music educator who believes in the building of community and music literacy through choral singing. Ellissa assumed the role of Assistant Choral Conductor of the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) in 2024, after serving as the Choral Fellow (Conducting) since 2021. Over these years, Ellissa has been active as an instructor and singer with the SSO’s Choral Programmes, developed the Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir’s current musicianship curriculum, and been involved in a variety of other community outreach programmes within the SSO.

Ellissa graduated from the University of Cambridge with a Master of Music (Choral Conducting), and studied Music Pedagogy at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét (Hungary). She was a choral scholar with The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, has had the pleasure of traveling extensively with a variety of ensembles as either conductor, workshop clinician, singer, or soloist, and is ever-inspired by the lens of culture and history in music-making. She is grateful to have received mentorship in choral conducting from Stephen Layton, Pad Zoltán, Graham Ross, Geoffrey Webber, and Éva Rozgonyi.

Besides her work at the SSO, Ellissa currently serves as the Vice-President of the Choral Directors’ Association (Singapore), is a Founder and Director of Chroma, a choral collective based in Singapore, and conducts a number of school choirs, including choirs at the Methodist Girls’ School and St. Margaret’s School (Primary). She remains active as a singer in various ensembles, and relishes every opportunity to use her voice in music making. She spends part of her life teaching music in Special Education classrooms, developing and teaching curriculum for a number of preschools, and advocates for the arts to be accessible to all.