This is a list of concerts we are attending, wishing we could attend, or thinking about attending between May 5 and 11, 2025. For more of what’s happening around Toronto, visit our calendar here.
COC: Instrumental Series / Toronto Summer Music Festival 2025: 20th Anniversary Preview
Tuesday, May 6, noon
Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, Free
Summer 2025 is Jonathan Crow’s final festival, having been music director of TSMF for the last nine years: on their 20th year, TSMF presents a good mix of repertoire, and has become a great experience for young artists and the veterans to mingle, share, and create beautiful performances. Come out and join Crow and his crowd: Barry Shiffmann (viola), Ellamay Mantie (cello), Philip Chiu (piano), and Caitlin Wood (Soprano), for this light daytime preview of the 2025 season, where we can experience things-to-come. After all, chamber music, deriving from the simple tradition of playing together, is still one of the best listening experiences, with its close musical intimacy, and its connection with others. Info here.
Womens’ Musical Club of Toronto: Music in the Afternoon: Asitha Tennekoon — Belonging
Thursday, May 8, 1:30 p.m.
Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building. $50, free with student ID
The last concert of the 24/25 season for WMCT features Tennekoon and pianist Steven Philcox, and a lovely string quartet of familiar local faces. Philcox has been busy with the Canadian Song Project, initiated with Lawrence Wiliford in 2011, promoting the commissioning and performance of Canadian art songs: this program is a great mix of old and new music, all written in English. The pervasive preference to European arts songs is not an illusion — however, whilst the canonic repertoire does contain some of the finest music ever written, the exposure to things that we have yet to experience is essential; all organisms must grow, or face death. This program, with two bookends of English works: Vaughan Wililams’s ‘On Wenlock Edge’: a lush work for piano quintet and voice, and Barber’s ‘Knoxville Summer’ of 1915, explores three works from composers born in 1980s (two Canadians and an American), including a new WMCT commission by Danika Lorèn, whose beautiful voice has graced Toronto stages for years. This stage full of exciting, thriving young performers and composers, with Philcox, promises much beauty. Pre-concert lecture will start at 12:15, for those who are interested. Info here.
Friends of Music at St. Thomas’s: Mark Fewer: Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin by J.S.Bach
Friday, May 9, 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, May 10, 4 p.m.,
St. Thomas’s Anglican Church, 383 Huron St., PWYW
Mark Fewer is always busy. Always. Fewer’s projects usually come with a twist or two. If you are a happy, content, casual concert goer, continued exploration of the familiar is comforting and enjoyable; however, with careful eyes, even the standard package can be surprising, as the devil’s in the details — always. For this particular project, Fewer is bringing in six violins. By six different luthiers. For six solo violin works. If you’ve ever talked to a serious string player, you know that they can certainly get into the nitty gritties of the instruments — the age, model, material, the bow hairs, strings, the variations are endless — a bit like custom-made perfumes or jewellery. Or the recipe for the best Sunday gravy. You may have wondered: this is all good and well, but does it actually make much difference? How will you ever know, as most performances are done on a single instrument, even if the player has a few choices they can make? Well, here’s your chance! Fewer will be playing Sonata No. 1 in G minor on a violin by David Prentice, Partita No. 1 in B minor: violin by John Newton, Sonata No. 2 in A minor: violin by Mark Schnurr, Partita No. 2 in D minor: violin by Itzel Ávila, Sonata No. 3 in C major: Isabelle Wilbaux, and Partita NO. 3 in E major: violin by Sibylle Walke/Ruppert. A total of five Ontario luthiers and one Quebecois — what a lovely way to celebrate Canadian luthiers! The project spans over Friday and Saturday — do come with ears alert and open. Info here.
Orpheus Choir of Toronto: Mass Transmission
Saturday, May 10, 7:30 p.m.
Grace Church on-the-hill, 300 Lonsdale Rd., $25+
OCT’s 60th season finishes with panache: works for choir and fixed electronics. Featuring two Canadian premieres: Jocelyn Hagen’s ‘Hummingbird’ and DJ/Composer Mason Bates’ ‘Mass Transmission’; electronics in classical music still feels a bit new to many, and even for seasoned concert-goers, choir + electronics is a fairly rare thing. Come out to support the OCT and enjoy this noble experience. After all, there’s a magic in live choral performance — of all the voices coming to life in real time, the building of those sonic events in real space. To hear what may be possible with additional technology is an intriguing proposition. Info here.
The Noise Academy: Philippe Leroux’s Quid sit Musicus
Saturday, May 10, 7 p.m., Sunday, May 11, 4 p.m.
Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse, 79 Saint George St., $35
Philippe Leroux, currently based in Montreal, writes very hard music. Yet musicians who love his music, love it with total devotion. When Xin Wang and Rob Mcdonald came across Quid ist Musicus, an amalgam of late medieval and 2014 soundscapes, they knew that they had to make it happen. Premiered in 2014 in Paris, the work involves the seamless joining of acoustic and digital elements, and such demands for all musicians involved, including the electronics operators, are enormous. One may have heard Leroux’s music live, as he is featured often in Toronto new music programming — and if you have experienced it, you will know the immediate magical entry to Leroux’s soundscape can be a very special experience, and you’d be marking your calendar. If you haven’t experienced it, come and see this extravaganza of incredibly talented and hard working seven singers, four instrumentalists, and a conductor. This short concert will pack a punch with its musical and human intensity — be ready to be mesmerized. After all, the best way to experience a new thing is through the people who are in absolute love with it. Read our Preview here. Info here.
Royal Conservatory of Music: James Ehnes with Orion Weiss
Sunday, May 11, 3 p.m.
Koerner Hall, $70+
Ehnes and Weiss presents music of Bach, Vaughan Williams, Korngold, and Prokofiev. World-class Canadian violinist Ehnes requires no further explanation. Weiss is also internationally recognized for his playing as soloist and chamber musician — though he hasn’t played much in Canada yet, his recent recording and tour with Augustin Hadelich, American Roadtrip for Warner (2024), received great reviews, showing his superb musicianship and a certain indescribable special ability for the piano-violin repertoire. Two masters playing great music on a Sunday afternoon in beautiful Koerner Hall acoustics: a recipe for success. Info here.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.