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CRITIC’S PICKS | Classical Events You Absolutely Need To See This Week: Oct. 4 – 10

Classical music and opera events for the week of October 4 to 10.
Classical music and opera events for the week of October 4 to 10.

This is a list of amazing concerts we are attending, wishing we could attend, or thinking about attending between October 4–10, 2021. For more details on what’s happening from our trusted partners, visit our calendar here.

Harbourfront Centre | Dog Without Feathers (online)

📅 Monday — October 4, 2021, (runs through Oct. 11)
📍 LINK
💸 $15

Harbourfront Centre (with Digidance) continues their online production of Dog Without Feathers — a digital broadcast from Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker. The work creates a mesmerizing vision of mud-and-dust-covered dancers emerging from the animal and elemental world. It’s rich in the sounds, landscape, and people of the Capibaribe River Region of Northeastern Brazil. | Details

Soundstreams | Garden Of Vanished Pleasures (online)

📅 Tuesday — October 5, 2021, 8 p.m. ET (runs through Oct. 10)
📍 LINK
💸 $20

Soundstreams takes their digital residency at Crow’s Theatre with Garden Of Vanished Pleasures into a second week. The 75-minute staged production celebrates English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener, and author Derek Jarman. Features music by Cecilia Livingston with texts drawn from Derek Jarman’s journals, adapted by Donna McKevitt. Single tickets are available via Crow’s Theatre Box Office. Runs through Oct. 10. | Details

UofT Faculty of Music | Thursdays at Noon: John Luther Adams’ Inuksuit

📅 Thursday — October 7, 2021, 12:10 p.m. ET
📍 LINK
💸 Free!

Alex Ross once called him “One of the most original musical thinkers of the new century.” John Luther Adams is criminally underperformed, so any chance to hear his works are an opportunity to listen to our environment transformed. Today you’ll hear Inuksuit performed by the University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble. They will be playing along Philosopher’s Walk (the path between the ROM and RCM on Bloor Street) that leads to the UofT Faculty of Music. | Details

Royal Conservatory | Andrei Feher conducts the Royal Conservatory Orchestra

📅 Thursday — October 7, 2021, 8 p.m. ET
📍 LINK
💸 $25+

Announced just a week ago, the Royal Conservatory of Music has launched the 2021-22 season starting today. You’ll hear an excellent young conductor Andrei Feher (borrowed from the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony), lead the RC Orchestra through works by Copland, Beethoven and Joan Tower. It will also be a bit of a celebration for the year to come. Can’t attend in person? Watch the show from your couch for free [HERE]. | Details

The Met: Live in HD | Modest Mussorgsky: Boris Godunov

📅 Saturday — October 9, 2021, 12:55 p.m. ET (times may vary)
📍 LINK
💸 $30

While Ontario’s opera scene is still on ice due to rules regarding opening amid the pandemic, the regular season at the Met is coming alive, including The Met: Live in HD. Lucky for us, we can get our opera fix but visiting our local Cineplex theatre. This week we highly recommend Boris Godunov, with bass René Pape cast as Boris (he’s one of the best). Stephen Wadsworth’s touching production sensitively conveys the Russian people’s optimism and sorrow, as well as the monarch himself. It runs two-and-a-quarter hours with no intermission. | Details

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