SCRUTINY | TSO/Pavel Kolesnikov: A Fine Night At The Symphony

By Michael Vincent on February 21, 2016

It was a banquet of blurry fingers at Roy Thomson Hall Saturday night, as pianist Pavel Kolesnikov stopped by to lend his musical finesse to Rachmaninoff's “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini”.

SCRUTINY | Ensemble Studio Artists Shine In The Marriage Of Figaro Preview

By Joseph So on February 11, 2016

SCRUTINY | Christopher Purves: The Art of Song

By Joseph So on February 10, 2016

Christopher Purves: The Art of Song. The British bass-baritone dazzles audiences in Handel and Mussorgsky.

SCRUTINY | Chilly Gonzales And The Kaiser String Quartet Get Classical At Massey Hall

By Nicholas Godsoe on February 9, 2016

"As the string quartet, (in full tuxedo) followed by Gonzales, (in a suave, velveteen, burgundy robe) assumed the stage, the audience went wild..."

SCRUTINY | Tanya Tagaq and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Call Rebel Rebel

By Michael Vincent on February 7, 2016

The audience was buzzing when I overheard a proclamation: "Tanya!" That Tanya, of course, was Tanya Tagaq, an Inuk throat singer from Cambridge Bay (Iqaluktuutiaq), Nunavut, located on Victoria Island.

SCRUTINY | Tafelmusik Revives Beethoven's 9th

By Michael Vincent on February 5, 2016

What would Beethoven have heard? Brandishing the equivalent of field cannons, pitch-forks and bull-whips, with gut strings, valveless horns and baroque contrabassoon, Tafelmusik proposed a possible answer with a performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony last night.

SCRUTINY | Barbara Hannigan Shines With The TSO

By Michael Vincent on January 28, 2016

With a brew of composers rarely mixed, soprano Barbara Hannigan joined the Toronto Symphony last night to perform Henri Dutilleux's "Correspondances" – a 22-minute song cycle which she has remained loyal since first recording it with Esa-Pekka Salonen, in 2013.

SCRUTINY | Bow to String, Air to Breath At Koerner Hall

By Tyler Versluis on January 27, 2016

Enter Esprit Orchestra on January 24th in Koerner Hall, where a varied programme of music in by Samuel Andreyev, Daníel Bjarnason, Alexina Louie and R. Murray Schafer demonstrated how wide and multi-faceted these creative executions have become in 2016.

SCRUTINY | Happy Ending To Bernard Labadie's TSO Comeback

By Arthur Kaptainis on January 17, 2016

The engagement of Bernard Labadie as the conductor of two January Mozart programs (and five concerts) had been on the Toronto Symphony Orchestra books for years. There was nevertheless an aura of suspense Saturday at Roy Thomson Hall – this evening representing Labadie’s first public appearance in Canada after a long and grueling convalescence from lymphoma that included a month in an induced coma.

SCRUTINY | JACK Quartet Clear The Air

By Adam Scime on January 16, 2016

The JACK Quartet has rightly become a towering vehicle for the performance and championing of contemporary music. With an impressive seventeen commercial recordings, numerous awards of international recognition, and commissions from the world’s leading composers, the JACK Quartet has successfully won over contemporary music lovers with a commanding performance bravura and dazzling musicianship.