Daniel John Taylor, O.C. has been awarded the inaugural National Medal for Music. The announcement comes on the heels of his induction as an Office of the Order of Canada in December 2022.
Keeping up the momentum, and in his capacity as a University of Toronto professor, Taylor and McGill University Opera Director Patrick Hansen will team up to present the first classical music concert at Toronto’s new state-of-the-art concert venue, TD Concert Hall at the Allied Music Centre on March 2.
The newly minted National Medal for Music is meant to represent Canada’s highest award in the arts, and will be given every year to two individuals whose careers represent leadership in the sector. It recognizes achievement as well as impact on the community. The second recipient for 2023 will be Canadian political icon, the Right Honourable Ed Broadbent.
Daniel Taylor
When awarding the Office of the Order of Canada, the Office of the Governor General of Canada called Taylor, “one of our country’s most celebrated cultural ambassadors, distinguishing himself with moving performances and known for his warmth and humour.”
- Founding artistic director and conductor of the Theatre of Early Music and The Trinity Choir;
- Director of Musical Studies, Head of Historical Performance and Professor at the University of Toronto;
- He was awarded the Queen’s Jubilee Medal;
- He has recorded work that appears on more than 120 music releases as well as films;
- His productions have received several awards, including a GRAMMY, JUNO, ADISQ, and BBC Music Award.
As a professor, many of his opera students represent the genre’s bright stars carving out careers of their own, including baritones Jonathon Adams, Joel Allison and Geoffrey Sirett, tenors Isaiah Bell and Owen McCausland, sopranos Rebecca Genge, Jane Fingler, Bronwyn Thies-Thompson, Sinead White and Jennifer Wilson, and countertenors Nicholas Burns, Mikah Meyer, Ryan McDonald and Ian Sabourin.
Taylor’s busy performing career has taken him to the San Francisco Opera and Welsh Opera, and he has performed with Opéra de Montréal, and the Canadian Opera Company. As a soloist, he has performed at the Edinburgh Festival, and with the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, the symphonies of Madrid, Dallas and Toronto, among others.
He recently performed the title tole in Gluck’s Orfeo at the Teatro Colon, and in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on tour in the United Kingdom, and will be returning to London’s Wigmore Hall later in 2023.
The McGill-University of Toronto Concert
Students of Taylor’s from the University of Toronto Historical Performance Area and McGill Faculty of Music Opera will come to perform together for the first time in a Baroque Opera Pasticcio titled Love, Beauty and Death in Venice. The concert represents the first time the two universities have worked together in their history, and will be narrated by opera luminary Ben Heppner.
The concert takes place March 2 at 7:30 p.m. in the TD Concert Hall at the Allied Music Centre, an intimate venue with cutting edge acoustics. More details and tickets to be announced soon.
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