Toronto Symphony Orchestra to Present MOZART@258 Festival & More in January

Mozart@258 Festival marks the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's 10th annual celebration of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birthday, with six concerts rich in the beloved composer's music, from January 11 to 23, 2014.

The TSO's yearly celebration of Mozart has become an important tradition in Toronto every winter. This year's Festival features the music Mozart wrote while working as a freelance composer and musician in Vienna, as well as choral music composed under his patron Prince Archbishop of Salzburg. Both guest conductors joining the Festival this year, Ignat Solzhenitsyn and Louis Lortie, will lead as Mozart did in his lifetime, performing and conducting from the piano. The final concert of the Festival includes "Gran Partita" long considered one of Mozart's greatest works of chamber music for wind instruments.

Guest conductor and pianist Ignat Solzhenitsyn will kick off the festival with Mozart's Symphony No. 39, one of the composer's final symphonies created in an intense burst of brilliance near the end of his life. Taking to the podium and the piano for Piano Concerto No. 18, The Boston Globe has called Solzhenitsyn's interpretations of Mozart both "beautiful and intelligent."

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Music Director Peter Oundjian and the Orchestra will be joined by the Amadeus Choir and an all-Canadian cast of vocalists, including soprano Leslie Ann Bradley, mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal, tenor Lawrence Wiliford, and bass-baritone Gordon Bintner, for Mozart's jubilant Coronation Mass. Grammy Award-winning violinist Hilary Hahn, a "musician of extraordinary technical prowess" (San Francisco Chronicle), will take centre stage for Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 "Turkish".

Toronto Symphony Orchestra Concertmaster Jonathan Crow will be the featured soloist in Mozart's Violin Sonata in G Major, as part of a masterworks programme for violin, woodwinds, and piano. A regular guest of the TSO for 35 years, pianist Louis Lortie will join the TSO onstage as he conducts Mozart's Serenade No. 10 in B-flat major, "Gran Partita" and leads from the keyboard in the Piano Concerto No. 22 in E-flat Major.

Guest Conductor Rob Kapilow, known to YPC audiences for The Polar Express and Paddywak, returns to the TSO with Once Upon a Time. Fairytales old and new spring to life in exciting ways through music and dance with the Orchestra performing Prokofiev's Cinderella, Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, and Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream and with special guests PickleShoes Dance Company.

Conductor Fabien Gabel, recently appointed Music Director of the Québec Symphony Orchestra, will make his TSO début with The French Connection, a programme of audience favourites by Berlioz, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns, matched with a solo performance of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G Major by Glenn Gould School graduate, Ryan MacEvoy McCullough.

Multi-GRAMMY Award-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Simon and Garfunkel helped to shape the landscape of contemporary pop music. Guest Pops conductor Michael Krajewski, with vocalists AJ Swearingen and Jonathan Beedle, will bring their authentic re-creation of timeless hits such as "The Sound of Silence", "Bridge Over Troubled Water" and "Mrs. Robinson".

About the TSO: Founded in 1922, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is one of Canada's most important cultural institutions recognized internationally as an outstanding orchestra. Currently celebrating his 10th season as Music Director, Peter Oundjian continues to lead the Orchestra with a commitment to innovative programming and audience development with performances that range from Masterworks to New Creations, Young People's Concerts to Pops, all showcasing the exceptional talents of the Orchestra along with a roster of distinguished guest artists and conductors. In addition to the concert season, the TSO serves the larger community with TSOUNDCHECK, the original under-35 discount ticket programme, the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra, and through music education and outreach programmes which connect students with acclaimed curriculum-based programming.

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