MONDAY
- Toronto Brass Quintet at Church of the Redeemer (Bloor St. & Avenue Rd.), 7 p.m.
Trumpeters Ted Clark and Michael Fedyshyn, trombonist Megan Hodge, French horn Olivia Brayley and tuba player Jennifer Stephen are busy, top-level freelancers (Hodge, for example, regularly works with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra) that don’t get out nearly enough as the Toronto Brass Quintet.
The programme is likely to be a mix of classic and contemporary pieces. Tickets are $20 ($10 for students and seniors) at the door.
TUESDAY
- Free Canadian Art Song Project recital at the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Noon.
The new art song project I wrote about here last weekend gets its first public event at noon, part of the free recital series organized by the Canadian Opera Company at the Four Seasons Centre.
Soprano Carla Huhtanen, mezzo Krisztina Szabó and tenor Lawrence Wiliford present a selection of pieces brand-new and older, accompanied by Christopher Mokrzewski and Stephen Philcox.
- Pianist Richard Goode at the Jane Mallett Theatre, 8 p.m.
This native New Yorker is one of those pianists who makes familiar music sound fresh — without making too much of a fuss in the process.
Goode’s visit with Music Toronto is an all-Romantic affair, featuring the eight Op. 76 pieces by Johannes Brahms and a selection of shorter works by Frédéric Chopin, crowned with his Sonata No. 3.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
Here is a handheld video of Goode performing Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 55 No. 2 in E-flat at the Jerusalem Theatre in 2010:
WEDNESDAY
- Toronto Symphony Orchestra, final New Creations festival concert at Roy Thomson Hall, 8 p.m.
I’ll have more about this later in the week, but note that this concert also comes with a pre-show event featuring a performance by the fabulous New Orford String Quartet in the lobby at 7:15 p.m.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
THURSDAY & FRIDAY
- Max Raabe & The Palast Orchester at Koerner Hall, 8 p.m.
These talented Germans offer an impeccably slick trip back to a 1920s supper club or music hall. Their schtick is so well done that it’s almost impossible to tell if they are dead serious, or if lead singer Max Raabe intended this to be a madcap lark that took on a life of its own.
It’s great entertainment, pure and simple, as well as a fine introduction to the greatest hits of a time long past.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
THURSDAY TO SUNDAY
- Cosí fan tutte presented by University of Toronto faculty of Music Opera Division at the MacMillan Theatre
Mozart’s well-loved romp about suspicious men whose women decide to set them straight gets a student production directed by Michael Patrick Albano.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
SUNDAY
There are two fabulous choices, for very different sensibilities — both at 3 p.m.
- Takács Quartet with pianist Joyce Yang at Koerner Hall.
The Takács Quartet, long considered one of the world’s finest, never fails to blow me away. Their yummy programme features the Quartettsatz by Franz Schubert, Beethoven’s late, Op. 131, String Quartet in C-sharp minor, and, with the help of pianist Joyce Yang, the A Major Piano Quintet, Op. 81, by Antonin Dvorák.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
Here are the Takács in Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge quartet movement:
- Stuttgart Chamber Choir, Choir 21 and TorQ Percussion Quartet at the Carlu.
It’s enough of an extra-rare treat to have a public concert at the Art Deco former Eaton Auditorium at College Park. In this case, the performers include one of the world’s finest professional choruses: the Stuttgard Chamber Choir, led by Friedhttp://musicaltorontodotorg.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=2054&action=edit&message=10er Bernius.
Invited by Soundstreams, along with Toronto’s Choir 21 (led by David Fallis) and the young TorQ Percussion Quartet, the guests perform a strangely diverse programme that ranges from J.S. Bach to the premiere of a new piece by Canadian Paul Frehner, with a bit of Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss in between.
One guarantee: It won’t be dull.
For more details, and tickets, click here.
Here is the Stuttgart choir singing Johannes Brahms’ gorgeous Geistliches Lied (Spiritual Song), Op. 30, which is not on Sunday’s programme:
John Terauds