January Concerts At The Royal Conservatory Of Music

The eleventh edition of the 21C Music Festival, which spans from January to May of 2024, will include 7 concerts and include 1 world and 13 Canadian premieres, 3 Canadian composers, and 8 Canadian artists and ensembles.

Turkish pianist Fazıl Say returns for his third appearance in Koerner Hall on January 19 with a program of his own works for solo piano, voice, and chamber ensemble. He shares the evening with Turkish-Canadian mezzo-soprano and alumna of The Royal Conservatory Beste Kalender, violinists Lara and Scott St. John, internationally acclaimed violist and co-founder of the St. Lawrence String Quartet Barry Shiffman, and one of Canada's finest cellists Winona Zelenka, who serves currently as Assistant Principal Cellist of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The works consist of Gezi Park 2 and 3, The Moving Mansion, as well as a selection of songs and piano jazz fantasies on Gershwin's “Summertime,” Mozart's the Rondo alla turca, and Paganini Jazz, which was inspired by classical, modern, and jazz styles, reminiscent of the music of such greats as Scott Joplin, Art Tatum, Gershwin, and Bernstein.

                                               

Canadian violinist and musical maverick Lara St. John has been described as “something of a phenomenon” by The Strad and a “high-powered soloist” by The New York Times. She released her album ♀She/Her/Hers in 2022, featuring 17 original solo violin compositions written by 12 exceptional composers, including Laurie Anderson, Valerie Coleman, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jessica Meyer, Jessie Montgomery, and Ana Sokolović. The project is part of St. John's larger ongoing mission to fight for women's rights and historically marginalized groups, and many of the works from the recording will receive their Canadian premieres on January 20.

Performed by The Glenn Gould School's New Music Ensemble and led by conductor and award-winning composer Brian Current, Indígena is an exciting and engaging showcase of outstanding adventurous music, with a particular focus on Tania León's powerful and evocative composition, Indígena. This work for large ensemble is a highlight of the evening on January 20, immersing the audience in a lush and vibrant sound world that is both uplifting and thought-provoking. Visually stunning Respire, by Pierre Jodlowski in collaboration with dance company Myriam Naisy, incorporates electronic elements and video projections of the dancers. Chaya Czernowin's Habekhi (The Crying) is a haunting work that combines mezzo-soprano and electronics to create a sense of sorrow and loss. Žibuoklė Martinaitytė's Ping Pong Concerto is a playful and unexpected addition, featuring an ensemble of musicians that follow the motions of live ping pong players.

Called the “Yo-Yo Ma of the harp” by Vogue, Bridget Kibbey joins the acclaimed Calidore String Quartet and narrator Mervon Mehta for an eclectic performance on January 21, including a new commission for harp and quartet by Sebastian Currier, titled Ongoingness, as well as Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death and André Caplet's harp quintet version of the same work. With the harp as her muse, Kibbey is in demand for her virtuosic and soulful performances – excavating centuries of music as a soloist and alongside today's top performing artists – from the French Belle Époque to the Baroque, to Persian modes, to Latin jazz traditions, and beyond. The New York City-based Calidore String Quartet is recognized as one of the world's foremost interpreters of a vast repertory, from the cycles of quartets by Beethoven and Mendelssohn to works of celebrated contemporary voices like György Kurtág, Jörg Widmann, and Caroline Shaw. Executive Director of Performing Arts at The Royal Conservatory, Mervon Mehta's career in the arts has seen him on both sides of the curtain. He has performed as an actor in over 100 theatrical productions and as a narrator with orchestras in Munich, Monte Carlo, Los Angeles, Ottawa, Chicago, Houston, Budapest, and Lisbon; and at the Festival de Radio France and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, under the batons of Christoph Eschenbach, Lawrence Foster, and his father, Zubin Mehta.

Brad Mehldau: 14 Reveries

Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist Brad Mehldau has been called “a renaissance artist at the height of his powers” by the BBC and “the greatest working jazz pianist” by The New Yorker. He is first and foremost an improviser but also has a deep fascination for the formal architecture of music, with the structure of his musical thought serving as an expressive device. For his return to Koerner Hall on January 27, Mehldau performs an evening of solo piano, including a new work which was commissioned by The Royal Conservatory, Wigmore Hall (London), Cal Performances (UC Berkeley), and Carnegie Hall. In this newly commissioned work, 14 Reveries, Mehldau reflects on the interior experience that we create from our own consciousness, independently of others. Written from a similar impulse as his Suite: April 2020, 14 Reveries is a meditation on the space a composer leaves between specific directions that lets the beauty of the music reveal itself, while still allowing new discovery. The second half of the concert will include selections from his album Suite: April 2020 and further works to be announced from the stage.

The 21C Music Festival continues with Laurie Anderson on April 5, 2024 and Kronos Quartet: Five Decades on May 9, 2024.

Classical Music

Piano Concerts

Angela Hewitt's interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach have established her as one of the composer's foremost interpreters of our time. One of the world's leading concert pianists, she has been awarded an OBE from Queen Elizabeth II and was promoted to a Companion of the Order of Canada. She was Artist of the Year at the 2006 Gramophone Awards, Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2010 MIDEM Classical Awards in Cannes, and, in 2018, received the Governor General's Lifetime Achievement Award in Ottawa. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada, has seven honorary doctorates, and is an alumna of The Royal Conservatory of Music. In her fifth performance in Koerner Hall on January 14, Ms. Hewitt presents a program of Bach, Samuel Barber, Felix Mendelssohn, Shostakovich, and Robert Schumann. As The New York Times stated, “Ms. Hewitt is one of those rare musicians who seem to get something into their heads and hearts and find it at their fingertips instantaneously.”

Mazzoleni Masters

Known for “an exceptional blend of precision with tonal generosity” (BBC Music Magazine), violinist Mayumi Seiler performs with esteemed pianist Jeanie Chung on January 28. The program features two monumental sonatas, Schubert's “Grand Duo” and Schumann's No. 2 in D Minor, op. 121, and Seiler will also be joined by special guest, violinist Min Jeong Koh, for Prokofiev Duo for Two Violins, op. 56. Seiler, renowned for her exciting performances of concerto, recital, and collaborative works both live and on disc, has graced stages from New York's Carnegie Hall to Toronto's Roy Thompson Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Vienna's Musikverein, and in London at Wigmore Hall and the Royal Albert Hall for The Proms. Chung has given solo recitals, concerto performances, and chamber music concerts throughout North America, Central America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and has collaborated with renowned artists like Barry Shiffman, Andrés Díaz, Rachel Mercer, Susan Hoeppner, and Ian Clarke, among others.

Discovery Series

The annual Glenn Gould School Vocal Showcase, an evening of art song and opera excerpts featuring the top students from The Glenn Gould School Vocal Program, takes place on January 27.

Free event

On January 23, as part of the Discovery Series, the talented solo performers of The Glenn Gould School compete in The Robert W. & G. Ann Corcoran Concerto Competition Finals. The winners will get the opportunity to perform a concerto with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra during the 2024-25 concert season. 

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