KUNE, Sona Jobarteh & More to Perform at The Royal Conservatory Of Music in March

 The Royal Conservatory of Music has revealed its programming for March.

Check out the schedule below!

Global Music

Founded at The Royal Conservatory in celebration of the sesquicentennial, KUNÉ – Canada's global orchestra explores and celebrates Canada's cultural diversity through the shared language of music. The 11 musicians hail from all corners of the globe: Peru, Burkina Faso, China, Iran, and beyond, and together they create a sound that is at once global and uniquely local. The ensemble fuses 11 musical traditions and 25 instruments into an ear-spinning confection of leaping melodies and luscious timbres. On March 2, they are joined by global South Asian pop icon Meesha Shafi and Canadian rhumba flamenco artist Jesse Cook. Shafi is a Sufi superstar who began her musical journey in Lahore, Pakistan, as the singer for a rock band. She soon branched out into a solo career that celebrates her musical and artistic heritage via folk and Sufi sensibilities combined with global instrumentation. She recently emigrated to Canada. Known for his intoxicating fusion of world music styles, Cook is widely considered as one of the most influential figures in ‘nuevo flamenco' guitar, incorporating elements of flamenco, rumba, jazz, and many forms of world music into his work. This concert is presented in partnership with Small World Music.

With her shimmering 21-string kora melodies and distinctive voice, Sona Jobarteh is “a griot for a new generation of West Africans” according to the BBC. Breaking from a seven-century-old tradition that reserved the instrument for males of a hereditary musical family, Jobarteh is not only the very first female kora virtuoso, but also a deft innovator who “blends traditional music, blues, and Afropop to impressive effect” (The Guardian). Along with selling out venues like the Barbican in London and La Seine Musicale in Paris, she is also a leading activist for social change and education reform in Africa, delivering potent speeches to the UN, the WTO, and UNICEF, and founding The Gambia Academy. She shares the evening on March 9 with Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Taj Mahal. This legendary figure in the blues and roots music is described as a “master of blues and folk styles on guitar, banjo, and harmonica, and a commanding singer with a raw, immediately recognizable baritone” by The New York Times. A brilliant artist with a musicologist's mind, he is a hero to rock-and-roll icons such as Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones, who has collaborated with Jobarteh, Toumani Diabaté, and Keb' Mo', among many others. “The blues is bigger than most people think,” he says. “You could hear Mozart play the blues. It might be more like a lament. It might be more melancholy. But I'm going to tell you: the blues is in there.”

Classical Music

Piano Recitals

The New York Times describes Igor Levit as one of the “most important artists of his generation” and, according to The New Yorker, he is “like no other pianist.” He was Musical America's Recording Artist of the Year 2020 and the 2018 Gilmore Artist, whose 2022 album, On DSCH, was awarded the Recording of the Year Award as well as the Instrumental Award of the BBC Music Magazine. As a recitalist, Levit regularly performs at the world's most renowned concert halls and festivals, and he is a regular soloist with the world's leading orchestras such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Vienna Philharmonic. His recital on March 10 with works by Beethoven, Mahler, and Hindemith marks Mr. Levit's Koerner Hall debut.

Vocal Concerts

The afternoon on March 24 will be dedicated to Canadian rising stars Ema Nikolovska and Charles Richard-Hamelin in a program of Debussy, Medtner, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, as well as Margaret Bonds's Songs of the Seasons and Nicolas Slonimsky's Five Advertising Songs. An alumna of The Glenn Gould School, Macedonian-Canadian mezzo-soprano Nikolovska has performed with acclaimed international orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Berlin, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and Orchester Musikkollegium Winterthur conducted by Barbara Hannigan. She is a current BBC New Generation Artist who won first prize at the International Vocal Competition in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Ferrier Loveday Song Prize (Kathleen Ferrier Awards), and was a prize winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions. In 2022, she became a recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. Silver medalist and laureate of the Krystian Zimerman Prize at the 2015 International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Canadian pianist Richard-Hamelin stands out as one of the most important musicians of his generation. In 2014, he also won the second prize at the Montreal International Musical Competition and the third prize at the Seoul International Music Competition in South Korea. As BBC Music Magazine stated, “Charles Richard-Hamelin is clearly a musician-pianist: fluent, multi-faceted and tonally seductive.”

Opera

Students from The Glenn Gould School's vocal program present their fully staged annual opera in Koerner Hall, conducted by Nicholas Ellis and directed by Stephen Carr, on March 20 and March 22. This season's offering is Francis Poulenc's heartbreaking masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmélites, premiered in 1957 at La Scala in Milan. Set during the brutal height of the French Revolution, the opera tells the true story of 16 Carmelite nuns, convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to death by guillotine. A young aristocrat, Blanche de la Force, seeks refuge and safety among the Carmelite sisters, but as the barbarous Reign of Terror sweeps across France, she soon finds that she cannot escape her fears, nor her fate. The opera's jaw-dropping final scene has left audiences speechless by its sheer power. It is operatic storytelling at its most riveting and not to be missed! Ellis is the Artistic Director, Conductor, and Founder of the Orchestre de l'Agora, who currently serves as Artistic Partner to the Orchestre Métropolitain and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He was recently named Principal Guest Conductor for Les Violons du Roy. Carr's work as a stage director, educator, and performer of opera, music theater, and operetta has taken him to the Washington National Opera, Seoul Arts Center, Daegu Opera, Palm Beach Opera, Opera North, Opera Naples, Ohio Light Opera, Eastman Opera Theater, and Center City Opera of Philadelphia.

Free events

Chamber ensembles from The Glenn Gould School perform before a celebrated jury, competing for over $11,000 in awards in the GGS Chamber Competition Finals as part of the Discovery Series on March 6.

The Phil and Eli Taylor Performance Academy for Young Artists presents the fourth Taylor Academy Showcase Concert on March 9, featuring leading young classical musicians in Canada aged 8-18, as well as The Stars of Tomorrow on March 21, in which winners of the Taylor Academy's Junior Concerto Competition perform Baroque and Classical concerti in Mazzoleni Concert Hall.

Solo and chamber works are performed by young artists on the cusp of major careers, who are enrolled in The Rebanks Family Fellowship and International Performance Residency Program at The Glenn Gould School, in the Rebanks Family Fellowship Concert on March 27. 

KUNÉ with special guests Meesha Shafi and Jesse Cook

(Global Music): Saturday, March 2, 2024 at 8pm | KH; from $50

GGS Chamber Competition Finals

(Discovery Series): Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at 7:30pm | KH; free

Taylor Academy Showcase Concert

(Taylor Academy Concerts): Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 4:30pm | MCH; free

Sona Jobarteh and Taj Mahal

(Global Music): Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 8pm | KH; from $60

Igor Levit

(Piano Concerts): Sunday, March 10, 2024 at 3pm | KH; from $50

GGS Spring Opera: Francis Poulenc: Dialogues des Carmélites

(Glenn Gould School Operas): Wednesday, March 20 & Friday, March 22, 2024 at 8pm | KH; from $25

Taylor Academy: The Stars of Tomorrow

(Taylor Academy Concerts): Thursday, March 21, 2024 at 7:30pm | MCH; free

Ema Nikolovska with Charles Richard-Hamelin

(Vocal Concerts): Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 3pm | KH; from $35

Rebanks Family Fellowship Concert

(Rebanks Family Fellowship Concerts): Wednesday, March 27, 2024 at 7:30pm | MCH; free

All concerts take place at The Royal Conservatory of Music

TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto

A limited number of Rush Tickets are available starting 3 hours before all performances presented by The Royal Conservatory. Ticket prices will vary.
Rush Tickets are limited to two tickets per person. 

Seat locations are assigned at the discretion of the box office and locations may vary.

Rush Tickets are available by phone only, on a first-come first-served basis.

Tickets and subscriptions are available online at www.rcmusic.com/performance, by calling 416.408.0208, or in person at the Weston Family Box Office

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