 The group was sometimes referred to as the "Sunday Chorale", after the name of the weekly CBC Radio program on which the choir was featured from 1952-1969. Notable members of the chorus included Evelyne Anderson, Devina Bailey, Lorne Betts, Kathleen Morrison Brown, Reginald Hugo, May Lawson, Joan Maxwell, Phyllis Cooke Thomson, and Gladys Whitehead.Founded under the name the Oriana Singers in 1936 by composer and conductor W.H.Anderson, The Choristers initially consisted of 14 singers and specialized in performing madrigals, motets, folksong arrangements, and sacred and secular partsongs.