Education
University of Toronto.
music educator musicologist opera singer
University of Toronto.
Her husband, Weldon Kilburn, had been her early coach and piano accompanist. Marshall "began voice studies at age 12 with Weldon Kilburn (at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto), her accompanist and coach until 1971 and to whom she was eventually married in 1968.” Lois Marshall was a graduate of the University of Toronto. She held honorary degrees from the Universities of Toronto and Regina, and the Royal Conservatory made her an honorary fellow in 1994.” She enjoyed a long career, primarily as a concert and recital singer, first as a soprano and later as a mezzo-soprano.
She recorded extensively and in a very wide repertoire.
Especially prized are the live recordings, which provide something of the vitality and warmth she radiated on those occasions. The lifelong effects of childhood polio severely limited her mobility, especially in later years.
Nevertheless, she appeared occasionally on opera stages and in televised opera, including Boston productions especially staged for her by Sarah Caldwell. Her final performances in opera were as the old nurse in Eugene Onegin, in both Ottawa and Toronto.
Early fame came with appearances and recordings with Toscanini and Beecham.
Foreign many years, she toured as the soprano soloist in the Bach Aria Group, and sang in annual Toronto performances of Messiah and Saint Matthew Passion under Sir Ernest MacMillan and successive conductors of the Toronto Symphony.