This is a list of concerts we are attending, wishing we could attend, or thinking about attending between March 11 and 17, 2024. For more details on what’s happening around Toronto, visit our calendar here.
Canadian Opera Company: COC March Break — Cendrillon
Wednesday, Mar. 13, 12 p.m.
Richard Bernard Shaw Amphitheatre, Four Seasons for the Performing Arts.
Free, tickets are required.
What better way to enjoy the March break, than an interactive experience about Cinderella (Cendrillon)? COC Teaching Artists: Karine White, Annamarie Cabri, and Timothy Cheung, explores synergy of music, set design, and choreography in Massenet’s Cendrillon, in this noon-hour series. Info here.
Metropolitan United Church: Noon at the Met
Thursday, Mar. 14, 12 p.m.
Metropolitan United Church,
56 Queen St. East. Free, donation is welcomed.
Metropolitan’s noon series runs regular weekly concerts from September to November, February to May. For this week, feature artists Mave Palmer (soprano) and Helen Becqué (piano) curated a collection of ecstatic poetry and intimate floral landscape in arts songs, alternating with piano solo works by Luise Adolpha Le Beau, whose compositions were greatly admired by Liszt, Brahms and Hanslick, yet had to face many obstacles as a female composer- including being ‘lost’ to Western music history, till recent. Info here.
University of Toronto Opera: Cendrillon
Thursday, Mar. 14, 7:30 p.m.,
Friday, Mar. 15, 7:30 p.m.,
Saturday, Mar. 16, 7:30 p.m.,
Sunday, Mar. 17, 2:30 p.m.
Elgin Theatre. $10+
Established in 1946, the University of Toronto Opera program produced many fine international operatic singers. This production of Massenet’s Cendrillon (‘Cinderella’), features dedicated young artists from the program, along with an orchestra from the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. This is a great chance to bring the whole family to the beautiful Elgin Theatre, for this popular fairy tale, especially with a family-friendly price tag. Info here.
Link Music Lab: A Thousand and One Nights: Welcome Nowruz and Springtime
Small World Centre, 180 Shaw Street.
Saturday Mar. 16, Sunday Mar. 17: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. $15
An event of music, storytelling, and arts-and-crafts to celebrate Nowruz, a holiday signalling spring and Persian new year. Farsi, Greek, Turkish, Arab, and Balkan music will fill the hearts, and there will definitely be a few sing-alongs. Multiple concerts and numerous workshops are scheduled throughout both days for children aged 10 and under. Info here.
Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Toronto Mendelssohn Singers: Winterreise
Saturday Mar. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre. $25+
The Toronto Mendelssohn Singers, Baritone Brett Polegato and pianist Philip Chiu, with conductor Jean-Sébastien Vallée, present Gregor Meyer’s arrangement of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise. Meyer utilizes the choir to create a stylistically diverse accompaniment to the story of a lone wanderer, while maintaining the original melody and text — an interesting proposition. Works of Clara Schumann arranged by James McCullough and Fanny Hensel round out the program. Info here.
Kindred Spirits Orchestra: Myths and Legends
Saturday Mar. 16, 8 p.m.
Meridian Arts Centre. $22.50+, youth pricing available
Arts and politics — it’s a curious mix. Kindred Spirits Orchestra and pianist Li Wang present the Yellow River Piano Concerto. This concerto was created under the direct order of Madame Mao, wife of Chairman Mao, as China tried to create its own art forms to contrast against Western culture during the Cultural Revolution. A great chance to hear how an established culture adapts and transforms another’s idiom. There will be an intermission discussion and Q&A with Li Wang and Daniel Vnukowski. The program will open with Canadian composer Jordan Pal’s “On the Double”, and ends with the perennial favourite: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. Info here.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.
Sign up for the Ludwig Van Toronto e-Blast! — local classical music and opera news straight to your inbox
HERE.
- CRITIC’S PICKS | Classical Music Events You Absolutely Need To See This Week: April 22 – April 28 - April 22, 2024
- CRITIC’S PICKS | Classical Music Events You Absolutely Need To See This Week: April 15 – April 21 - April 15, 2024
- SCRUTINY | Laurie Anderson Entrances A Sold-Out Koerner Hall With A Journey Down The Rabbit Hole - April 8, 2024
