Kindred Spirits Orchestra will present ten concerts for their 2025/26 season, spread across venues in Toronto, Markham, Unionville, Collingwood and Stouffville. Along with familiar masterworks of the Western classical canon, the season includes lesser known orchestral works, and many that KSO has never performed before.
“I am very excited about the upcoming concert season,” says KSO Music Director Kristian Alexander in statement.
“The programming is versatile and includes masterworks from the 19th and the 20th centuries, along with less frequently performed jewels of the orchestral repertoire. Twenty pieces will be presented by the KSO for a very first time in a kaleidoscope of music written by composers from Germany, Austria, France, Spain, England, Finland, Hungary, Canada, the USA and Russia.”
Season Highlights
Kindred Spirits Orchestra offers imaginative programming you won’t find elsewhere in the region. Among the major works highlighted throughout 2025/26:
- Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, a Symphony in Four Scenes in B minor inspired by Byron’s poem of the same name;
- Paul Dukas’ Symphony in C, a three-movement symphony that premiered when the composer was just 30;
- Richard Strauss’ neo-Baroque Le bourgeois gentilhomme, inspired by the satire of the original story by Molière;
- Shostakovich’s monumental Twelfth Symphony, also titled The Year 1917, which was written in 1961, and dedicated it to the memory of Vladimir Lenin;
- Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony in C minor, WAB 108, the last symphony the composer completed;
- Sibelius’ Second Symphony, completed after a trip to Italy to instant success at its première in 1902.
Alice Ho is the KSO 2025-2026 composer-in-residence. The 2025/26 season will see the world première of a piano concert by the acclaimed Canadian composer titled Pictures from an Imagined Exhibition. Pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico will perform the work.
Emerging Artist Harrison Yang Meng, winner of the Grand Prize of the 2024 International Music Festival and Competition, performs Walton’s seldom heard Concert for viola and orchestra with the KSO in December 2025.
Pianist and 96.3 FM radio personality Daniel Vnukowski returns to host the concert series.
Guest Artists
- Italian pianist Antonio Di Stefano makes his Canadian début with the KSO performing Ravel’s Piano concerto in G;
- German piano duo Florian Koltun and Xin Wang will peform Mozart’s Concerto for two pianos;
- Violinist Jing Ye, Concertmaster of the KSO, returns to perform as a soloist in Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole;
- Award-winning pianist Mary Kenedi performs the Ontario première of Debussy’s Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, a work that the composer rejected during his lifetime.
Venues & Special Concerts
Flato Markham Theatre
- The KSO season opens at the Flato Markham Theatre on October 18, 2025. Other performances at the venue take place in December 2025, and February 2026.
Meridian Arts Centre — George Weston Recital Hall
- The KSO will perform at the George Weston Recital Hall for three concerts in March, May, and June of 2026.
Special Concerts
- The KSO will co-present the 15th annual Markham Contemporary Music Festival at the Cornell Recital Hall in April 2026.
- KSO celebrates Canada Day with music on July 1, 2026 at Unionville Millennium Square, along with two open-air “Symphony under the Stars” concerts in Stouffville (July 17) and Collingwood (July 12).
Find more details about Kindred Spirits Orchestra 2025/26 season [HERE].
Are you looking to promote an event? Have a news tip? Need to know the best events happening this weekend? Send us a note.
#LUDWIGVAN
Get the daily arts news straight to your inbox.