Despite its straitened state, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra announced this morning that it is going ahead with an ambitious European tour just ahead of the start of its 2014-15 season.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
Led by music director Peter Oundjian, the tour will include Brandon, Man.-native violinist James Ehnes, but it won’t include a work by a living Canadian composer, which seems a shame given a number of fine premieres we’ve heard since Oundjian arrived 10 years ago. (The sole Canadian work on the tour programme is Orion, by Claude Vivier, premiered by the Montreal Symphony in 1980.)
The 10-day, six-concert tour of North and Central Europe and Iceland gets its kickoff concert as part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival (which hasn’t yet announced its season) at Koerner Hall on Aug. 12.
The main Symphony season is the usual, 100-concert parade of Great Works and Great Soloists with Great Conductors in a variety of formats, including the innovative 6:30 p.m. Wednesday Afterworks presentations.
Notable details include the presence of two operas in concert on the Roy Thomson Hall stage: Conductor Gianandrea Noseda and his crew from the Teatro Regio in Turin present Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell as an early Christmas present, on Dec. 5; and the New Creations Festival includes a concert presentation of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin,13 months from now that includes the fabulous Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan and Toronto’s own new-opera heroine, mezzo Krisztina Szabó.
Benjamin is curating next year’s New Creations Festival, which will, fortunately, include a couple of Canadian premieres in a season that appears particularly oblivious to this country’s compositional talents.
Bernard Labadie, of Violons du Roy fame, has been asked to curate next year’s Mozart festival. Danish conductor Thomas Dausgaard will introduce us to the sometimes odd wonders of composer Carl Nielsen’s symphonies in honour of his sesquicentennial. And Sir Andrew Davis will present a series of concerts over the course of the season that celebrate the highlights of his 40-year association with the orchestra.
Oundjian, an enthusiastic promoter of great English choral works, will lead performances of Edward Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, with Ben Heppner scheduled to appear as one of the soloists.
And perennial favourite pianist Emanuel Ax is curating a 10-day pianopalooza next February.
One of the most interesting initiatives for next season is the start of a pre-concert series of four chamber music presentations on the Roy Thomson Hall stage featuring the musicians of the TSO.
Steve Reinecke will lead all of the 2014-15 pops concerts. There will also be the usual mix of family-friendly and holiday fare on the roster.
All the details should be available online here by the time you read this.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
