Joanna Estelle

Joanna Estelle Storoschuk is a Ukrainian-Canadian composer, lyricist, and arranger whose music has won critical acclaim internationally, most recently at Carnegie Hall in May 2023 where Bobby’s Song was premiered by Trio Casals. She learned classical piano and theory with the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto) as a young person, but was deterred from pursuing music as a career. Instead, she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in English and Psychology (Brock, 1972), then studied management accounting while working in Canada’s federal public service.

However, Estelle’s enthusiasm for music never waned: she composed songs and enrolled in piano, theory, and arranging classes in her free time. She also sang in two choirs in Ottawa’s Ukrainian community conducted by Laurence Ewashko, who encouraged her to pursue university-level studies in music. Estelle graduated from the University of Ottawa summa cum laude on the dean’s list, winning the Faculty of Arts silver medal (2009), then earned her Master of Arts in Music at York University, Toronto (2011), and completed two years of doctoral studies at the University of Sheffield, UK (2016-2018). 

Estelle’s work is featured on numerous albums released internationally by PARMA Recordings and has won several medals in the Global Music Awards competition, namely for Bobby’s Song, recorded by Trio Casals, and I Am My Home, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra (2022). Her latest album TRANSMUTATION, released in November 2023, includes these pieces, others recorded by Trio Casals, and an 11-piece song cycle recorded by Ewashko Singers in Ukrainian, based on the St. John Chrysostom liturgy.