After completing her M.A. in philosophy, mezzo-soprano Vilma Indra Vitols went on to full-time music studies at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Music. A graduate of the Opera Division, she sang numerous roles there including Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and the title role in Iolanthe. Other operatic credits include the title role in Bizet's Carmen for Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, Nancy in Britten's Albert Herring with the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England, Hansel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel with the Canadian Opera Company's Outreach tour, Lucy Brown in Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera with Vancouver Opera. She has sung numerous roles with Opera Atelier, including Nymphe Guerriere and Venus in Lully's Persée, Mercury and 2nd Witch in Dido and Aeneas. Recent operatic credits include Maria Picariello in John Estacio's & John Murrell's acclaimed opera Filumena at the Banff Centre and Olga in Eugene Onegin with Pacific Opera Victoria.

Vilma has been the alto soloist in many oratorios, including Bach's St. John Passion, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass and Missa Sancti Nicolai, and the Requiems of Mozart and Duruflé. She has been a featured soloist in concert with the Aldeburgh Connection, St. Lawrence String Quartet, Mooredale Concerts, Niagara Chamber Music Festival, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Talisker Players. As a recipient of the Royal Over-Seas League Scholarship, she gave several recitals in London, England and is a frequent recitalist for the Latvian communities in Canada and the United States. As the First Prize winner at the 22nd Annual Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition for Voice 1999, Vilma completed a recital tour across Canada in the fall of 1999.

Other performance credits include a starring role as "the Vamp" in a short video for BRAVO! called Divine Comedy, "the Devil" in Stravinsky's The Soldier's Tale with The Friends of Gravity, and a Jaridian soldier on Earth: Final Conflict. In the summer of 2001, Vilma performed the role of Caroline in Maybe It's Mabeleen, a new play written and directed by Janet Banks, at the Toronto Fringe Festival. She has been exploring the cabaret repertoire in a series of concerts called Not at the Opera in Toronto, as a participant in the Chamber Music program at the Banff Centre for the Arts, and in the Fine Young Classicals concert featuring the music of Hanns Eisler.

A frequent performer of new music, Vilma has performed with Continuum at the Massey Hall New Music Festival and has had several works written for her by various Canadian composers including John Hawkins and Talivaldis Kenins. In the summer of 2000, she was alto soloist in the world première of Recordare by Canadian composer Imant Raminsh and in the Canadian première of Penderecki's Credo, both works conducted by the composers. In May 2001, she premièred a new music and dance work Flotsam and Jetsam by Toronto composer Juliet Palmer as part of the Open Ears Festival in Kitchener, reprising her role in the Toronto première of this work at Artword Theatre in December 2002. In February 2003, Vilma made her debut with Modern Baroque Opera in Vancouver performing the title role in the première of Peter Hannan's and Peter Hinton's The Diana Cantata. This past season she premièred new works by James Rolfe and Inouk Demers in concert with Toca Voca.

Future engagements include concerts with the Talisker Players and the role of Third Lady in The Magic Flute with Opera Atelier in the fall of 2006.