Arkora is a Toronto-based polyphonic fusion consort led by composerbandleader Benton Roark, bringing together chamber vocal music, contemporary classical, jazz, and ambient post-rock to create boundarypushing new music.

The group was founded in 2014 by Roark and conductor-vocalist Kathleen Allan with the launch of Roark’s concept-album Songs from the Rainshadow’s Edge on Redshift Records (WCMA nominee - Composition of the Year). In the decade following, the group has played an eclectic range of festivals and series across North America, including Roulette (Brooklyn), Vancouver Bach Festival, Chamberfest Ottawa, Church of the Friendly Ghost (Austin), Sound Symposium, English Harbour Arts Centre (Newfoundland), Hugh’s Room, Kingston Road Concert Series (Toronto), and Redshift Music (Vancouver).

The follow-up to Rainshadow’s Edge, 2017-18’s Transfigured Light project generated new music for vocal octet and chamber band by composers from Canada, the States, and China (and a new concept-cycle by Roark, Dystopia Lost), which was performed at festivals across Canada. Arkora’s music has been called “an experience of deep and darkling beauty” (The Austin Chronicle), “simply beautiful” (newmusicbuff.com) “a deep unity of music and text” (Vital Weekly Netherlands), and “the standout event of the spring music season” (The Vancouver Observer).

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Arkora created Cloud Chamber, a four-part video EP born as a collaboration between five core members and two analogue film-makers (Redshift Records, 2022), as well as The Sign of Jonas, an apocalypse chamber folk oratorio set to the poetry of Luke Hathaway that was toured in the summer of 2023. A record of Transfigured Light is being released in the fall of 2026.