Details

Toronto Centre for the Arts

5040 Yonge St.

Toronto ON  M2N 6R8

416-467-7142

info@orchestratoronto.ca

FACEBOOK | TWITTER

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About

Established in 1954 as the Bennington Heights Community Orchestra, Orchestra Toronto has grown in size and musical excellence to take its place as one of Canada’s oldest, largest and most highly lauded community volunteer orchestras.

It provides musicians with an opportunity to develop and perform public concerts from the symphonic repertoire and is dedicated to providing affordable family entertainment and music education. The orchestra performs five Sunday-afternoon concerts each season in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts in North York.

Its first season, in 1955, consisted of just one concert under the direction of Assen Kresteff. Two years later, Albert Aylward, a 25-year veteran of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra string section, took up the baton. In 1964, Milton Barnes, former conductor of the St. Catharines Symphony, became the orchestra’s conductor.

The orchestra was incorporated in November 1967, a board of directors was named and the orchestra was re-born as the 63-member East York Symphony, with a focus on serving the East York community. Orval Reis, conductor of the University of Toronto Orchestra, began his six-season tenure as conductor.

During the ensuing years, conductors included Clifford Pool and David Ford, head of music at North Toronto Collegiate. Douglas Sanford was Music Director From 1990 to 2001 and was responsible for raising the calibre of performances to new heights. Errol Gay, who had been music director of orchestras in New York, Texas and North Carolina, was appointed music director in 2002. Gay has held professorial positions at several American universities and from 1970 to 1976 was a conductor and chorus master with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.  For several seasons, he was assistant musical director of the Charlottetown Festival and co-conductor of the High Park Choirs of Toronto, as well as music advisor/conductor of the Hart House Orchestra at the University of Toronto. For 24 years he served as associate principal librarian of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Gay’s celebrated eight-year tenure came to an end with the 2009-2010 season. His successor was Danielle Lisboa, who has a doctorate in orchestral conducting from the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester, New York. At the end of the 2012-13 season Lisboa left to pursue a teaching position in Edmonton.

In September of 2013 Orchestra Toronto welcomed celebrated conductor and violinist Kevin Mallon as our new music director.  He brings a wealth of experience from all over the world.  We have also now grown to more than 80 players and are recognized as an important resource for dedicated and motivated musicians to rehearse and perform orchestral repertoire and a source of entertainment and music education for its audiences.

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The Folks Behind It All

Kevin Mallon

Conductor, Kevin Mallon, grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland. A scholarship brought him to Manchester’s specialist music school, Chethams School of Music where he was greatly influenced by the conductor and early music specialist John Eliot Gardiner. Later studies included composition with Peter Maxwell Davies at Dartington College Of Arts and violin at the Royal Northern College of Music. From 1989- 92 he led and directed The Irish Baroque Orchestra and was concert master of Le Concert Spirituel and Les Arts Florissants in Paris. With these groups, Mallon recorded and performed concerts all over Europe, including Vienna, London (Wigmore Hall), Berlin, Paris (Versailles), Russia, The Baltic States, China, and Japan. In 1993 he accepted positions with the University of Toronto and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, positions he has now left in order to pursue conducting full time.  In 1999 Mallon founded the vocal and instrumental group the Aradia Ensemble, with whom he has toured widely, and become conductor of the Toronto Chamber Orchestra. With these ensembles he has made over 50 recordings for Naxos, has produced two music videos and appeared on numerous film soundtrack (including “Yes Man” with Jim Carey in 2008). Aradia has collaborated with Isadora Duncan and Baroque dancers, has co-produced opera, and worked with Balinese Gamelan. In July 2000, they were the featured ensemble in the New Zealand International Chamber Music Festival and in the summer of 2003 they performed in the festival: “Musica nel Chiostro”, in Tuscany. Aradia has made tours to the USA, Ireland and since 2010 has been the orchestra in residence at the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy.  Mallon has conducted the contemporary opera company Opera Anonymous performing Stravinsky’s Rakes Progress, and the early 19th century opera Lucas et Cecile by Canadian Joseph Quesnel. With Toronto’s Opera in Concert, he has conducted Handel’s Semele, Rinaldo, Tamerlano, Giulio Cesare, Orlando, Rameau’s Castor and Pollux, Vivaldi’s La Griselda, Mozart’s Zaide, Haydn’s Il mondo della luna,Schubert’s Die Freunde von Salamanka. Hippolite et Arice of Rameau is upcoming in February 2014. With the Toronto Operetta Theatre he has conducted Wiener Blut by Johann Strauss, The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár, and Lehár’s Count of Luxembourg.  In 2004 the Gramophone and BBC magazines featured major profiles of Maestro Mallon. His recording of Boyce symphonies won a Gramophone Editor’s choice award in 2005 and his recording of Handel’s Water-music and Royal Fireworks Music won the same award in 2006. Further awards include a 2009 Juno nomination for a Haydn Symphonies CD. Maestro Mallon also fulfills numerous invitations to guest conduct. In Ireland he was appointed Artistic Director of Opera 2005, Ireland’s newest opera company, formed to celebrate Cork’s tenure as European Capital of Culture. With this company he has conducted Mozart’s Figaro’s Wedding, Bizet’s Carmen, Weill’s Threepenny Opera, Rossini’s Barber of Seville, Don Giovanni,  and Verdi’s Ballo in Maschera. He was three times nominated for the Irish Times Theatre Award. In 2009 Maestro Mallon conducted Carmen and Don Giovanni in Odessa, then on tour to Holland, Belgium and Spain. Other guest conducting appearances include the Windsor Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia and Symphony Niagara, the Hamilton Philharmonic, Thunder Bay Symphony, Orchestra London, Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Cambridge Concentus and the Halifax Summer Opera Festival.  Maestro Mallon’s most recent appointments are as Music Director of the Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra in Ottawa (2010), conductor for the Centre for Opera Studies in Italy (2010), conductor of New York’s newly formed West Side Chamber Orchestra (2011) and Music Director of Orchestra Toronto (2013).  Maestro Mallon is also a composer, most recently writing music for the TV series Camelot.

 

Samantha Little

Samantha Little has been an active musician, educator and arts director in Toronto for over 20 years.  She holds a Hons.Bac.Mus. from the University of Toronto and her A.T.C.L.  Samantha has managed a diverse range of music, theatre and dance groups most recently including the Oriana Women’s Choir and the Common Thread Community Chorus.  She is currently the Production Manager for the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir with whom she also performs as well as being the Executive Director of the Aradia Ensemble.  An active theatre technician, her management approach is holistic, having worked in both stage carpentry, audio and production management.  She also remains active in Film and TV production as a technician and production manager.  Samantha has maintained a teaching studio in Toronto for 17 years and was the Children’s Choirs Conductor and Assistant Music Coordinator at the MNjcc as well as co-founder of the Downtown Community Choral Summit.  As an active stage manager and former Front of House Manager of the Al Green theatre, Samantha enjoys supporting performers and ensembles in all areas and is the founder of the Apprentice Stage Manager program at Orchestra Toronto.  She has proudly been the executive director of Orchestra Toronto since 2013.

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Events

March 6^th, 2016

(Pre-concert chat at 2:15 with Guest Conductor William Rowson)

Orchestra Toronto Presents: “Shamrocks at the Symphony” in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St.
Join Guest Conductor William Rowson for our annual “Light classics” concert with music from “Riverdance” by Bill Whelan and “Lord of the Dance” by Richard Hardiman.

Percy Grainger’s Londonderry Air and Molly on the Shore and selections from Leroy Anderson’s Irish Suite complete the celebration of Irish Music.

Tickets are $43 Adults, $37 Seniors and $15 Students and Under 29 at ticketmaster.ca or 1-855-985-2787

More information at www.orchestratoronto.ca

 

April 24^th, 2016 3:00 pm

(Pre-concert chat at 2:15 with Maestro Mallon)

Orchestra Toronto Presents: “Viva Italia” in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St.
Some of Italy’s greatest operatic hits from Verdi, Puccini and Donizetti will complement our special guest, Double Bassist Joel Quarrington performing Bottesini’s “Grand Concerto in F# minor” and ”Steps to Ecstasy” by Marjan Mozetich.

Tickets are $43 Adults, $37 Seniors and $15 Students and Under 29 at ticketmaster.ca or 1-855-985-2787

More information at www.orchestratoronto.ca

 

June 19^th, 2016 3:00 pm

(Pre-concert chat at 2:15 with Maestro Mallon)

Orchestra Toronto Presents: “Music of the Czechs” in the George Weston Recital Hall at the Toronto Centre for the Arts, 5040 Yonge St.
Our season finale concert celebrates the Czechs and Father’s Day by highlighting our very own musicians.  We will perform Janacek’s ”Suite for String Orchestra”, Arnold Walter’s “Concerto for Orchestra” and Dvorak’s “Serenade for Wind Instruments” and finally his “Symphony No. 6 in D major Op. 60”.

Tickets are $43 Adults, $37 Seniors and $15 Students and Under 29 at ticketmaster.ca or 1-855-985-2787

More information at www.orchestratoronto.ca

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