The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony (Photo courtesy of KWS)

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony will launch their 2025/26 season with a performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. It’s an apt season debut for the orchestra that, just two years ago, declared bankruptcy.

James Sommerville conducts the performance with KWS partners the Grand Philharmonic Choir, and their Artistic Director Mark Vuorinen, with soloists Allyson McHardy, mezzo-soprano, and Lauren Margison, soprano.

The Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony

The KW Symphony was founded in 1945 to bring the joy of Western classical music to the region, and to perform with the Grand Philharmonic Choir. A small ensemble at its inception, it grew over the decades to a full-size orchestra, and gained widespread recognition with a series of music directors, including Frederick Pohl in the 1960s, and Raffi Armenian in the 1970s. The Canadian Chamber Ensemble was formed from its ranks, a group that would tour internationally.

KWS recorded several albums, garnering multiple JUNO Award nominations over the years.

Alongside its performance schedule, the Symphony created community outreach programs, including school concerts and youth orchestra.

With mounting financial pressures, much of it due to the wake of the COVID pandemic, the KWS abruptly folded on the eve of opening their 2023/24 season. The cancellation of all concerts and programs left musicians scrambling, and young artists without the youth orchestra experience they’d anticipated.

During the interim, the musicians of KWS continued to play both locally as well as with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in concert.

James Sommerville also acts as Artistic Advisor to the KWS, and comments on the organization’s website.

“The upcoming season represents the next step in the orchestra’s return to its rightful place as a pillar of the Kitchener-Waterloo cultural community. It is impossible to overstate the contributions the players have made since September of 2023, taking on every role of governance, logistics, planning, and fundraising, while simultaneously sharing their astonishing craft and musicianship in a series of brilliant concerts. They kept this ship afloat until reinforcements were found.”

News of the orchestra’s administrative renewal came in the fall of 2024, and a full concert season has been launched for 2025/26.

Gustav Mahler — Symphony No. 2 in C Minor, Resurrection

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 had its premiere in 1895. He worked on the piece between 1888 and 1894, and it has become one of his most popular works. The composer was fascinated by the idea of the afterlife and resurrection, and those themes infuse the work.

It began as a single-movement symphonic poem he titled Funeral Rites (Totenfeier), and he hesitated for years on whether or not to enlarge the work. He played the original one movement piece for conductor Hans von Bülow at the Hamburg Opera, where Mahler had recently been appointed composer. Von Bülow fell ill over the next few years, and died in 1894. After attending his funeral, where he heard a poem by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock titled The Resurrection (Die Auferstehung), he wrote to a friend, “It struck me like lightning, this thing, and everything was revealed to me clear and plain.”

He would use the first two verses of Klopstock’s hymn, adding his own, for use in the finale, where he wanted a vocal element.

Performers

James Sommerville

Canadian hornist and conductor James Sommerville began his musical education at the age of seven. He switched from piano to French horn in high school at the urging of his teacher, a move that would set up an exceptionally fruitful career. Sommerville was the principal hornist for the Boston Symphony Orchestra (retiring in 2022), and former Conductor and Music Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic. He also previously performed with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal as principal hornist, along with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company and Symphony Nova Scotia. In addition to his performing career, James is a recording artist with several acclaimed releases on the Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, Marquis Classics and the CBC SM5000 label, including the Mozart horn concertos, recorded with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, which won a 1998 JUNO Award. He has added conductor to his musical repertoire in recent years.

Grand Philharmonic Choir

The Grand Philharmonic Choir was founded in 1883 as the Berlin Philharmonic and Orchestral Society, and after a brief hiatus in the early 20th century, continued as the Kitchener-Waterloo Philharmonic Choir in 1922. The organization was renamed a second time to the Grand Philharmonic Choir in 2006. Howard Dyck became the artistic director in 1972, a position he held for 38 years. Today, the choir is led by Mark Vuorinen. The Grand Philharmonic Choir consists of four choirs, including a large adult chorus, a smaller chamber choir, a youth choir for singers aged 14 to 23, and a children’s choir for young singers aged seven to 14. The organization performs largely in the Waterloo Region, including formal concerts as well as free community singalongs, and provides music education for their members.

Allyson McHardy

Mezzo-soprano Allyson McHardy has performed on stages worldwide, including recent engagements with Sweden’s Drottningholms Slottsteater, Chicago’s Music of the Baroque, and l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. The Ontario native’s repertoire includes operatic as well as concert repertoire. Highlights include performing in the Opéra de Montréal production of Heggie’s Dead Man Walking as Sister Helen, which would go on to win a Prix Opus. Allyson went on tour with Robert Carsen production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream to Beijing, Aix-en-Provence, and Philadelphia.

Lauren Margison

Soprano Lauren Margison’s career includes performances across Canada and internationally in a variety of genres, including classical, jazz and pop music. She was named the 2025 winner of the Elizabeth Connell Prize International Singing Competition, and is a 2024 Sullivan Award Winner. She was recently the headline performer at the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Toronto. She will make her American debut with the Memphis Symphony and Opera in Verdi’s Requiem, and upcoming Canadian appearances including a performance of Adler’s Four Attributes of the Soul with Orchestra Toronto in March 2026.

The Concert

There are a few tickets left for the November 20 performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony.

Find concert details and tickets [HERE].
Find more information about the entire 2025/26 season, including holiday music and visiting performers [HERE].

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Anya Wassenberg

Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto City Editor at Ludwig Van. Previously, she was a freelance writer with a specialty in culture and travel for three decades, and a creative writing instructor for Ontariolearn.