This is one of those weekends where there is a bit too much going on, so, to help ease the burden of choice, here are some picks by taste:

Continuum Contemporary Music is just around the corner: Urgent Voices is an ambitious opener that reflects the core interest of this thirty-two-year-old organization: create, synthesize and present.

Announced today, the 2017 21C Music Festival line-up demonstrates how important this festival has become for expanding the classical music pallet.

Canadian soprano Suzie LeBlanc is on a mission to reunite the real words with the possible music of Bishop’s universe. It’s a mission that has proven to be, like so many adventures, full of unexpected twists.

The fad started the early 1990’s, and quickly sputtered out when people started to realize that the idea of genre, rather than an artful use of a specific musical style as a mater of depth, doesn’t really hold much water. It’s an empty statement that poses itself as an answer rather than a question.

Now I know why, because the video stream from the concert is still available. Here’s the programme, with much more detail available here:

Toronto Symphony Orchestra announces 13th annual New Creations Festival line-up curated by Owen Pallet and Abigail Richardson-Schult.

The Toy Piano Composers turned seven last weekend. To celebrate, they treated an audience to a program of chamber music based on the premise of integrating homemade/invented instruments. It was an evening full of whispers, creaks, rustles, hums, crackles, and rubbing.The turnout was good, and even the Music Gallery’s exceedingly uncomfortable pews didn’t detour a wholehearted gathering...

Like most of his music, Kúrtag’s Kafka Fragments (1985-7) for soprano and violin, looks backward, drawing influence from Webern, Berg, and expressionism, particularly the concept of the artist as an “outsider” – a victim of society and its cruelty.

Night one of the RCM’s 21C Festival kicks off with a fascinating program of works performed by the COC Orchestra.