We are a community of diverse singers
performing traditional and modern choral works in Los Angeles.
Sterling Ensemble Los Angeles is a semi-professional choir, founded in 2018 by Artistic Director Michelle Jensen. This diverse community of singers performs historic and modern choral works in the Los Angeles area and abroad. Collaborations include GRAMMY® Award-winning artists: Hila Plitmann, Sangeeta Kaur, Danaë Vlasse and Ben Bram.
The members of Sterling Ensemble cross generational, socio-economic, racial, cultural, and religious boundaries. While most members studied music in some form during college, many are now employed outside of the field. Teachers, military members, business leaders, and entrepreneurs join with professional musicians two hours a week to make excellent choral music. Sterling Ensemble opens up one position in each section for an undergraduate student to participate with the ensemble for a one-year term as an educational outreach. In addition to performing historical/classic literature, Sterling Ensemble actively collaborates with composers and other performers to explore new and varied repertoire.
Our first performance tour abroad was to Sardinia, Italy in January 2020, where we were invited to headline the historic “Sos Tres Re” festival and perform in concerts around the island. We performed with GRAMMY® Award—winner Sangeeta Kaur at the World Peace Song Awards in 2019 after collaborating on her album, Compassion. In 2021, we collaborated with composer Richard Burchard to produce Into the Light, an album of the composer’s choral works. The album is available now on all platforms. Most recently, Sterling Ensemble presented a concert set at the 2023 American Choral Directors Association Nation Conference in Cincinnati.
Sterling Ensemble is currently in residence at St. Andrew Catholic Church in Pasadena.
MICHELLE JENSEN
Michelle Jensen is a choral conductor, clinician, and teacher. In addition to directing Sterling Ensemble, she serves as the Conductor of the Chamber Singers and the Director of Graduate Choral Studies at Azusa Pacific University. She has also served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Southern California, where she earned both her BM and MME and is currently pursuing a DMA in Choral Music. While at USC, her studies in harp and voice led to participation in both the Thornton Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Singers under the direction of William Dehning, Paul Salamunovich, and Jo-Michael Scheibe. Michelle has also studied conducting with Charlene Archibeque and Lucinda Carver, and composition/choral arranging with Morten Lauridsen.
Jensen has led performances on four continents. In her long-standing collaboration with Eric Whitacre, she has served as choir master for several presentations of Paradise Lost, conducted the Eric Whitacre honor choir on an Italy performance tour (2007), prepared presentations for Steven Schwartz’s ASCAP musical theater workshop at Disney Studios (2004), and commissioned This Marriage, whose international premiere was performed by the Azusa Pacific University Chamber Singers in the Sydney Opera House (2005). In 2019, she was selected to conduct the Connecticut All-State Honor Choir.
Michelle continues to serve as a clinician, adjudicator, choreographer, and guest artist throughout the United States and abroad.