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74 Follis Avenue
Toronto, Ontario Canada M6G 1S6


Celebrating the Art of Song!


Artistic Directors: Stephen Ralls and Bruce Ubukata


Sunday Afternoon Series 2010/11

In the Sunday Series, each program is set around a theme — literary, musical or historical — weaving the musical selections around interesting readings from letters, diaries, newspaper clippings, poetry.

All concerts take place at 2:30 pm in Walter Hall in the Edward Johnson Building, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, 80 Queen's Park Circle, Toronto. Complimentary tea is served at intermission.


 
The Patrons' Salon

Sunday, October 24

Monica Whicher soprano
Anita Krause mezzo
James McLean tenor
Alexander Dobson baritone


 

The opening concert of the season takes up the opportunity afforded by the presence in Toronto of our three distinguished Honorary Patrons, singer Catherine Robbin, stage director Christopher Newton and conductor Steuart Bedford (in town to preside over the Canadian Opera Company's production of Brittens Death in Venice). They will introduce their personal selection of music which has been particularly important in their lives or which symbolises their close links with the Aldeburgh Connection and its artistic directors.


The Year of Song

Sunday, December 5

Erin Wall soprano
Phillip Addis baritone

All this year, we have been celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest of Romantic composers, Robert Schumann. His 30th year, 1840, was probably the happiest in his life, seeing him able, after long struggles with her family, to marry his beloved Clara Wieck. Hitherto, he had been the pre-eminent German composer of piano music. Now, the prospect of married bliss triggered an astonishing outpouring of music for voice and piano which include some of the world' s favourite Lieder.



A Shropshire Lad in Ontario


 

Sunday, January 30

Michael Colvin tenor
Brett Polegato baritone

"Six Songs from A Shropshire Lad", a song-cycle to poems of A. E. Housman, was composed by George Butterworth a hundred years ago. The premiere was given by the British baritone, James Campbell McInnes, who emigrated to Canada in 1919. As a singer and teacher in Toronto, he became a crucial figure in the city' s musical life, known for his "Tuesday Nine-O' Clocks", where he presented unfamiliar vocal and chamber music. As well, his extraordinary family life makes an intriguing story, with literary and musical links across the world.



C'est mon plaisir

Sunday, March 6

Nathalie Paulin soprano
Krisztina Szabo mezzo
Benjamin Covey baritone

"C'est mon plaisir" is inscribed over the doorway of Boston' s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The builder of the Venetian-style palazzo was a flamboyant figure in New England society - her friends included John Singer Sargent, Henry James, Nellie Melba and the Belgian-American composer, Charles Loeffler. The Boston Symphony opened her concert room, and her appearance at a 1912 symphony concert, wearing a white headband emblazoned with "Oh, you Red Sox", was reported at the time to have "almost caused a panic".




A Spring Schubertiad

Sunday, May 1

Gillian Keith soprano
Lawrence Wiliford tenor
Tyler Duncan baritone

May Day is one of the most suitable times for the celebration of our annual Greta Kraus Schubertiad. The spirit of springtime, often cheerful, sometimes melancholy, pervades the music of Franz Schubert. Three splendid singers will present a sequence of Lieder by the world' s greatest song-writer, some familiar, others less well-known, such as the uproarious comic scena Der Hochzeitsbraten - and would the afternoon be complete without the performance of some of our favourite piano-duets . . ?



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