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CRITIC'S PICKS | Classical Events You Absolutely Need To See This Week: Dec. 5 – 11

By Arthur Kaptainis on December 5, 2022

L-R (clockwise): Jean-Sébastien Vallée (Photo: Tam Photography); The Toronto Consort (back row) Paul Jenkins, David Fallis, Laura Pudwell, Esteban La Rotta, John Pepper, Cory Knight (front row) Katherine Hill, Michele DeBoer, Alison Melville, Ben Grossman (Photo: Bruce Zinger); Kronos Quartet with Tanya Tagaq (Photo: Lisa Sakulensky)
L-R (clockwise): Jean-Sébastien Vallée (Photo: Tam Photography); The Toronto Consort (back row) Paul Jenkins, David Fallis, Laura Pudwell, Esteban La Rotta, John Pepper, Cory Knight (front row) Katherine Hill, Michele DeBoer, Alison Melville, Ben Grossman (Photo: Bruce Zinger); Kronos Quartet with Tanya Tagaq (Photo: Lisa Sakulensky)

This is a list of concerts we are attending, wishing we could attend, or thinking about attending between Dec. 5 and Dec. 11, 2022. For more details on what’s happening around Toronto, visit our calendar here.

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir/Festival of Carols

Tuesday Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m. (repeat Wednesday Dec. 7 at 7:30 p.m.). Yorkminster Park Baptist Church. $25+

Many are the Christmas concerts this week, and few, I am willing to bet, are the bad ones. The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s contribution includes the premiere of Heartbeat, a piece by TMC composer-in-residence Shireen Abu-Khader that attempts to recreate the sonic environment of the time and place of the birth of Jesus. Jean-Sébastien Vallée conducts with Isabelle Demers at the organ. Info and tickets here.

RCM 21C Music Festival/Kronos Quartet

Tuesday Dec. 6, Thursday Dec. 8, Friday Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. Koerner Hall (Dec. 6 and 9); Mazzoleni Hall (Dec. 8).

The avant-garde elders from San Francisco are in town for three Conservatory dates, starting Tuesday with a live accompaniment of a feature-length documentary. On Thursday, they are joined by students of the Glenn Gould School in selections from the Kronos “Fifty for the Future” catalogue. On Friday, we hear (among other novelties) Tanya Tagaq’s Colonizer (with Ms Tagaq), and the Canadian premiere of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music. Check out our exclusive interview with Tanya Tagaq and members of Kronos Quartet here. Info and tickets here.

Toronto Consort/Praetorius Christmas Vespers

Friday Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. (repeats Saturday Dec. 10 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.). Jeanne Lamon Hall. $36+

The venerable early-music group revives the Christmas Vespers of the German composer and theorist Michael Praetorius (1571-1621). Cornetts and sackbuts included. David Fallis conducts. Info and tickets here.

Sinfonia Toronto/Beethoven and Haydn

Friday Dec. 9 at 8 p.m. Jane Mallett Theatre. Livestream available.

String-orchestra expansions of quartets by Haydn (Op. 33 No. 2 “The Joke”) and Beethoven (Op. 95) frame a revisitation of Tchaikovsky by Andrew Balfour, a composer of Cree descent, and a set of songs (Beethoven, Verdi, Zemlinsky) featuring the Armenian-Canadian soprano Lynn Anoush Isnar. Nurhan Arman conducts. Tickets (live or livestream) here.

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Arthur Kaptainis
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