Tania Miller and the National Academy Orchestra in 2024 (Photo courtesy of Brott Music)
The Brott Music festival, under the direction of Tania Miller, will be back for summer 2025 with a diverse program of music, and different ways to experience it. Auditions for the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, and the emerging vocalists of BrottOpera, wound up early in 2025, with rehearsals set to begin soon.
The festival kicks off on June 26, with the summer finale on August 14.
We spoke to Artistic Director and Conductor Tania Miller about this year’s offerings.
Brott Music
The Brott Music Festival focuses on the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, a federally recognized National Arts Training Program that provides professional level performance experience, mentorship and more to talented young Canadian musicians each summer. NAO members are chosen by a series of auditions which have wrapped up earlier this year. Along with training, orchestra members are paid $500 per week during the program.
The NAO serves as the orchestra-in-residence for the orchestral music festival.
Also part of Brott Music is BrottOpera, a training program offered to emerging vocal artists via audition. The participants are paid a stipend for their roles in the opera that’s produced each year, along with accommodations, coaching and training, and additional performance opportunities with a full orchestra, along with an evening of arias and ensembles.
Highlights of the Season include:
- A Night at the Oscars: an opening night with red carpet flair, and music from the movies;
- Bizet’s Carmen: a staged production of the iconic opera about a fiery heroine;
- Postcards from the Sky: A concert by candlelight in Hamilton’s atmospheric 175-year-old Church of the Ascension;
- Hollywood & The Rite of Spring: Superstar violinist Kerson Leong performs Korngold’s
Violin Concerto (created after the noted film composer retired from movie scores with the end of WWII), and the orchestra adds Stravinsky’s masterpiece; - Broadway Dreams: Phantom alum David Rogers (Raoul in the Livent national tour of Phantom of the Opera), and Kaleigh Gorka, who’s starred as Frozen’s Elsa in the touring Canadian production, sing some of Broadway’s biggest hits;
- Romeo & Juliet: Video and performance come together with a story about the iconic ballet as narrated by Veronica Tennant;
- Beethoven Immersive: The immersive experience, where audience members sit inside the orchestra, returns with Beethoven’s Fifth;
- I Dream of Italy: The season finale includes works by Rota, Strauss, Respighi, and Tchaikovsky, with guest artist double bassist Joel Quarrington.
There will also be two free lunchtime concerts on Hamilton’s waterfront, along with Brott Education Concerts later this year in the fall, and holiday musical magic in December, including Musical Magic of Christmas and Handel’s Messiah.
Performances take place in a variety of venues.
Tania Miller and the National Academy Orchestra in 2024 (Photo courtesy of Brott Music)
Tania Miller: The Interview
Programming Brott Music isn’t quite the same as most other summer music festivals. Even though the programming is condensed into the summer months, there’s a whole orchestra to audition and assemble beforehand, among other things.
“So much goes into the planning stages, the admin stages, choosing the orchestra, choosing the singers…” Tania Miller begins. “It’s a real process throughout the year.”
The selection is quite competitive, and so many of the NAO performers jump into a professional career not long after their summer intensive. That includes Nicholas Sharma, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s newly announced RBC Resident Conductor.
“There are a lot of Canadian conductors who’ve had the opportunity to work with the Brott Festival Orchestra,” Miller notes. She points out it involves a full eight weeks of conducting and rehearsals, including both orchestral and opera repertoire.
Brott Music has two assistant conductors this year. “There’s a lot of conductors who want to have those chances.”
The variety of the program is one of the draws for both musicians and conductors.
“It’s that chance to play your first pops show, your first opera…” she adds.
Some elements have been tweaked, based on last year’s experiences. For instance, the Beethoven Immersive concert opened the festival in 2024. During the performance, the audience members are seated within the orchestra, right alongside the musicians, and are invited to move to a different position for each movement.
“It was so extraordinary,” she recalls. “For the orchestra, that was their very first week,” she adds. “It was a bit unnerving for them.”
That style of performance has been moved to later on during the festival for 2025. Miller is looking forward to feedback from the musicians. “It will be interesting for me to see,” she says. “I’m training not just their musicianship, but how they connect with audiences,” she explains. “How do you impact people through music?”
That’s where different concert formats comes into play. When it comes to the two free concerts at the Bayfront pier, she leaves much of the planning to the musicians themselves.
“The NAO musicians, they curate the whole thing.”
The free concerts, of course, are meant to attract the curious and newcomers, along with orchestral aficionados.
“I feel that what music is striving to do is reach people in the way they really are,” Miller says. “They want to make connections.”
She’s curated interesting experiences for those who want to get closer to the music, including the unique video/performance of Romeo & Juliet and other music.
“It’s incredible for me to bring Veronica Tennant,” Tania says. The former principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada is now a producer and filmmaker, and she’ll be narrating personal stories to go along with her film. “Her first and last role was Juliet from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.”
Live music performance will accompany the film.
“It also connects people to Romeo and Juliet in a very special way.”
It’s an integral part of her music practice to find and mine ways of making those kinds of connections.
“I wish I had another lifetime to get involved with music therapy,” she adds. “Music unlocks so much of that. As a conductor, I spend a lot of time trying to convey what music is and does for us.”
BrottOpera & More
“We’re really excited about our Brott Opera program,” Miller says. The program has been expanded to four weeks from three, with a staged production this year, and a semi-staged night of arias and opera hits as well. “We can spend a little more time with our singers.”
Special guests include composers as well as musicians.
“I’m really excited that we have Ian Cusson be a part of our festival,” Miller says, adding that she’s been wanting to work with the composer for some time. “I’m excited to present Marjan Mozetich.” She points out that Mozetich grew up in Hamilton.
“I’m very excited that Joel Quarrington will be with us. He’s a really exciting teacher and mentor,” Miller adds. “That’s one of the things I really love about this program is how many mentors come in and out of the program.”
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