Edmonton Opera has announced the return of Opera al Fresco at the University of Alberta Botanic Garden on August 26, 2022 at 7pm. Celebrate summer with live music, food, and wine! Artistic Director Joel Ivany describes the event as “a great way to have the outdoors and opera combine.”
Sue Fitzsimmons joins the Edmonton Opera having recently held executive leadership roles at both Medicine Hat College and the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT). She is a long-time Edmontonian who believes in the power of creativity and the arts to build and sustain community.
In the 22/23 season, Edmonton Opera will present a uniquely staged and choreographed performance of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, a Home for the Holidays concert in December following the Opera’s first holiday concert last year, and more.
Three fan favourites, two riveting dramas, a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, and an exciting co-production with Vancouver Opera headline the Canadian Opera Company’s 2022/2023 programming. View the full season schedule and learn how to get tickets.
Premiering this December, the multi-award-winning innovative team at Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) is proud to present a bold interpretation of Handel's Messiah, accompanied by and in partnership with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), and co-directed by Joel Ivany, the Founding Artistic Director of AtG, Reneltta Arluk, Director of Indigenous Arts at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Messiah/Complex will premiere online on December 13, 2020 on AtG TV.
The Canadian Opera Company’s 2019/2020 season marked a year of inspired mainstage programming, increased community engagement, and new digital initiatives, as reported today at the COC’s Annual General Meeting by COC Board Chair Jonathan Morgan and COC General Director Alexander Neef.
Banff Centre will build upon its work in recent years changing conversations about opera. In 2020-21, Joel Ivany, director of opera at Banff Centre since 2014, will be joined this season by two co-directors: Métis and French-Canadian composer, Ian Cusson, and American soprano, Karen Slack, and celebrating Indigenous and Black composers and librettists.
For the first time in decades, a fully staged production of Richard Wagner's Parsifal will be presented in Canada, opening the Canadian Opera Company's monumental 2020/2021 season with a company premiere at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. Cast with more than 100 singers, an orchestra of 110 musicians, and a nearly six-hour run-time, this journey of one knight's quest for the Holy Grail offers Canadian audiences a rare opportunity to experience Wagner's thrilling final masterpiece in Toronto, in a celebrated COC co-production directed by François Girard.
The Canadian Opera Company's HANSEL AND GRETEL, directed by Joel Ivany, is a spectacularly detailed production; unfortunately, the sheer amount of things happening at every moment overwhelms the gorgeous music and talented cast.
Everyday magic comes alive in a new production that transplants Hansel and Gretel's adventures from a wooded forest setting to modern-day Toronto. As the siblings make their way through a contemporary high-rise neighbourhood in search of food, they must rely on their wits – and each other – to outsmart danger along the way. All throughout, cutting-edge stage technology paints a picture of the characters' vivid imaginations, creating a theatrical experience unlike any other. Hansel & Gretel runs for seven performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on February 6, 8, 11, 15, 16, 19, 21, 2020.
Incoming Music Director Gustavo Gimeno has set the tone for his first five years with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) by launching a 2020/21 season that personifies his expansive artistic vision, intellectual curiosity and sense of adventure. Gustavo is driven by a passion for exploring how well-known works in the classical repertoire contrast and illuminate repertoire across various genres and styles. His season offers works of orchestral adventure that will appeal to Toronto audiences known to embrace a broad range of musical and artistic experiences. The TSO is entering its 99th season, and Gustavo Gimeno is the first new Music Director in 15 years.
FIGARO'S WEDDING, first staged by Against the Grain in 2013, is a perfect example of how a good story and timeless music can transcend hundreds of years and switch languages, and still be rapturously funny. Featuring an English libretto by director Joel Ivany, the production still utilizes Mozart's original score from a?oeLe Nozze Di Figaroa?? to great effect via a thematically-appropriate quartet of strings and piano (music direction by Rachael Kerr).
January concerts at The Royal Conservatory of Music: 21C Music Festival Against the Grain Theatre's Ayre and other works by Osvaldo Golijov Saturday, January 11, 2020 at 8pm | Artist Talk at 7pm | Koerner Hall Osvaldo Golijov has been awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, has won two Grammy Awards for composition, and was Musical America's Composer of the Year in 2006. 21C goes deep into his catalogue with Ayre, a thrill to experience with its lush fusion of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean folk melodies. Starring Canadian soprano Miriam Khalil and staged by AtG's Joel Ivany, Juno-nominated Ayre is presented along with other works such as Mariel, K'vakarat, and Tenebrae. An all-star roster of musicians includes Jamey Haddad (percussion), Barry Shiffman (violin and viola), Michael Ward-Bergman (accordion), Juan Gabriel Olivares (clarinet) Beverley Johnston (percussion), Jeremy Flower (laptop and electronics), Roberto Occhipinti (bass), and Cantor Alex Stein.
The seventh edition of the 21C Music Festival will include eight concerts over three weekends, from Saturday, January 11 to Saturday, January 25, 2020. Two additional events celebrate Grammy Award-winning composer and one of America's most renowned creative pioneers, Laurie Anderson. Anderson's presentation of The Art of Falling in Koerner Hall is already sold out, but audiences can experience her work performed by students of The Glenn Gould School in Temerty Theatre, at the Royal Ontario Museum's virtual reality installation, To the Moon, and in a film screening of her documentary, Heart of a Dog at Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema.
Coinciding with autumn's first snowfall in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity's full line-up of 2020 residency programs in music has been released. Under the artistic leadership of an esteemed cohort of program directors, Banff music programs will cover a range of forms and themes, with fine-tuning to a number of major programs, including Classical Music Summer Programs, the Banff International Songwriter Residency, Choral Art, and Opera in the 21st Century. The announcement was made amid a busy time on the Banff Centre campus, with the Wîchoîe Ahiya Indigenous Singer-Songwriter Intensive and the Banff Musicians in Residence program taking place this month.
One of the most unique opera experiences in Toronto this year is that of a classic story brought to life in a dive bar. The Tranzac Club's unassuming entry makes it easy to miss if you aren't looking for it, but upon entering the building there's an unshakeable feeling that something special is happening within.
Against the Grain Theatre (AtG) teams up with Banff Centre for its first ever national tour of LA BOHÈME!
At a press conference held May 28 in the Davies Takacs Lobby of the Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre, the Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts (TAPA) announced 282 nominations for the 40th Anniversary Dora Mavor Moore Awards, which recognize excellence in professional theatre, dance and opera in Toronto. On Tuesday, June 25 at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, 49 Dora Mavor Moore Awards, the Silver Ticket Award and the Jon Kaplan Audience Choice Award will be presented.
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity's Mountainside Summer Season kicks off on May 24 with two extraordinary performances: Ghost Opera produced by Calgary's Old Trout Puppet Workshop and M nowin by British Columbia's Dancers of the Damelahamid. With more than 26 ticketed shows, and over 100 free events, Banff Centre is the place to experience multi-disciplinary art in the Canadian Rockies this summer. Tickets for all shows and events go on sale on March 20 at noon at banffcentre.ca/events
Cellist Amanda Gookin takes a major step forward in her mission to make classical music an active force for political good with her Forward Music Project on March 29 at 9:00 p.m. inside Dupont Underground. Praised for "Gookin's focus and ferocity-coupled with expert technical work" (The Strad), Forward Music Project is presented by National Sawdust Projects-the producing arm of National Sawdust. As part of DIRECT CURRENT's initiative to take Kennedy Center artists and programming out into the world beyond the traditional concert hall, Forward Music Project reaches new Washington-area audiences at Dupont Underground, a reclaimed 75,000-square-foot art exhibition and performance space built inside the only underground station in D.C.'s old streetcar system.
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