Ellissa Sayampanathan obtained her Masters in Music (Choral Conducting) from the University of Cambridge, where she sang with The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, and had the pleasure of studying at the Kodály Institute in Kecskemét, Hungary, where she earned a postgraduate diploma in Music Pedagogy. She holds a Licentiate Diploma (LTCL) in Vocal Performance and an Associate Diploma (ATCL) in Piano Performance from Trinity College, London, and has had the pleasure of studying conducting with Stephen Layton, Pad Zoltán, Graham Ross, Geoffrey Webber, and Éva Rozgonyi.

Having graduated from the National University of Singapore with a Bachelor's degree in English Literature, she is strongly influenced by the marriage between the written word and its performance through music. She seeks to mould young voices and minds through her work as a pedagogue, and aspires to build good musicianship and a love for music in her choristers.

Ellissa currently works regularly with choral groups at the Singapore Symphony Children's Choir, St Margaret's School (Primary), and Methodist Girls' School (Primary), and is the Choral Fellow (Conducting) with the Singapore Symphony Group Choral Programmes. As a choral practitioner, music literacy amongst young singers is her current priority, and much of her creativity is directed towards building musicianship in the Training Wing of the Singapore Symphony Children's Choir. She spends part of her life teaching music in Special Education classrooms and developing and teaching curriculum with the Methodist Preschool Services, and advocates for the arts to be accessible to all.

Ellissa is the co-Founder and co-Artistic Director of Chroma, a choral collective based in Singapore, and currently serves as the Vice-President of the Choral Directors' Association (Singapore). She remains active as a singer in various ensembles, and relishes every opportunity to use her voice in music making.