The 11th Edition of the 21C Music Festival at The Royal Conservatory of Music to Feature World Premieres and More

The eleventh edition of the 21C Music Festival, which spans from January to May of 2024, will include 7 concerts and they will welcome back American avant-garde artist, musician, and filmmaker Laurie Anderson and the Kronos Quartet, who are celebrating 50 years of their career.  

In total, the Festival will include more than 14 premieres: 1 world (Sebastian Currier: Ongoingness) and 13 Canadian (Laurie Anderson's Statue of Liberty, Valerie Coleman's Danza de la mariposa, Chaya Czernowin's Habekhi (The Crying), Melissa Dunphy's Kommos, Pierre Jodlowski's Respire, Adah Kaplan's Whitewashed, Gabriela Lena Frank's “Luciernagas” from Suite Mestiza, Tania León's Indígena, Žibuoklė Martinaitytė's Ping Pong Concerto, Brad Mehldau's 14 Reveries for Piano, Jessica Meyer's Confronting the Sky, Jessie Montgomery's Rhapsody No. 2, and Milica Paranosic's Bubamara). Works by 3 Canadian composers will be featured (Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt Gramatté's Caprice # 1: Die Kranke und die Uhr and Caprice # 5: Danse Marocaine, Ana Sokolović's Danza # 2, and works by Nicole Lizée) and 8 Canadian artists and ensembles (conductor Brain Current, mezzo-soprano Beste Kalender, narrator Mervon Mehta, violist Barry Shiffman, violinists Lara and Scott St. John, and cellist Winona Zelenka) will participate in the Festival.

Mervon Mehta, Executive Director of Performing Arts at The Royal Conservatory, said: “The appetite for newly minted music by Toronto concert goers is even more palpable today then it was pre-pandemic. Audiences are clamouring for the ‘new' in larger numbers than we have seen in previous festivals. This year, four of our boundary-breaking artists return while two exceptionally brilliant and musically innovative women make their debuts. Our student ensemble will deliver a program unlike anything you will have seen anywhere. We invite new audiences to experience what many others have come to expect at the 21C Music Festival … music that will stretch their ears and open their hearts.”

Fazıl Say and Friends

Turkish pianist Fazıl Say has been touching audiences and critics alike with his extraordinary talents for more than 25 years in a way that has become unique in the increasingly materialistic and elaborately organised world of classical music. His concerts are direct, open, exciting, and go straight to the heart. He is not simply a pianist of genius, but also a master composer and improviser. Since the beginning of his career, he has performed with many renowned American and European orchestras and numerous leading conductors, building up a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach to Viennese Classical (Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven), Romantic and contemporary music, including his own compositions for piano. On January 19, he will perform his own works for solo piano, voice, and chamber ensemble 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 (who is also Director of The Taylor Academy and Associate Dean & Director of Chamber Music at The Glenn Gould School), 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.

                       

Lara St. John: ♀she/her/hers

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, and world premiere recordings of works by Milica Paranosic, Micheline Coulombe St. Marcoux, Laura de Rover, Melissa Dunphy, and Adah Kaplan. The project is part of St. John's larger ongoing mission to fight for women's rights and historically marginalized groups, stemming from her experience as a 14-year-old victim of sexual abuse when she was a student at the Curtis Institute of Music. Since then, St. John has worked to give a voice to the voiceless and to help victims of abuse come forward and reclaim their stories. Says St. John: “As someone who is only too well aware of how the cards are stacked against women in music, I have spent a lot of time listening to works by those who have historically – and more recently – broken through the composition brotherhood. During the pandemic, I decided to record an album of solo violin works written by these remarkable women. Some were composed for me, some I arranged, and others I found to be impressive works of new violinistic ideas.” Many of the works from the project will receive their Canadian premieres on January 20.

21C Afterhours: Indígena

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.

Bridget Kibbey with the Calidore String Quartet and Mervon Mehta

Called “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 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. The New York Times has praised its “deep reserves of virtuosity and irrepressible dramatic instinct.” 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. A student of the late Sanford Meisner, Mehta has performed as an actor in over 100 theatrical productions, including residencies at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Citadel Theatre in Edmonton, and two seasons at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. He has performed 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. He has worked alongside several great jazz artists, including Joshua Redman, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, John Scofield, and Charles Lloyd. For more than a decade, he has collaborated with numerous musicians and peers such as the guitarists Peter Bernstein and Kurt Rosenwinkel, and tenor saxophonist Mark Turner. Mehldau also has played on a number of recordings outside of the jazz idiom, like Willie Nelson's Teatro and singer-songwriter Joe Henry's Scar. His music has appeared in several movies, including Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Wim Wender's Million Dollar Hotel. 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.

Laurie Anderson

Grammy Award-winning NYC artist and cultural icon Laurie Anderson, who captivates audiences worldwide, returns to Koerner Hall for a magical night on April 5 with another project after her fascinating The Art of Falling performance during the 21C Music Festival in January of 2020. Anderson is one of America's most renowned – and daring – creative pioneers. Known primarily for her multimedia presentations, she has cast herself in roles as varied as visual artist, composer, writer, poet, photographer, filmmaker, electronics whiz, vocalist, and instrumentalist.  

Kronos Quartet: Five Decades

One of the most celebrated and influential groups of our time, San Francisco's Kronos Quartet will celebrate five decades of sound with a carefully curated selection of its work, spanning brand new works and signature pieces by Nicole Lizée, Terry Riley, Peni Candra Rini, and Aleksandra Vrebalov on May 9. The 50th anniversary tour marks the debut of Kronos Quartet's recently appointed cellist Paul Wiancko, performing alongside founder and violinist David Harrington, and longtime members John Sherba (violin) and Hank Dutt (viola). Through all these years, Kronos has pursued a singular artistic vision, combining a spirit of fearless exploration with a commitment to continually reimagine the string quartet experience. They have performed thousands of concerts worldwide, releasing more than 60 recordings of extraordinary breadth and creativity, collaborating with many of the world's most accomplished composers and performers, and commissioning more than 1,000 works and arrangements for string quartet. The quartet has received over 40 awards, including the Polar Music, Avery Fisher, and Edison Klassiek Oeuvre prizes, some of the most prestigious awards given to musicians. According to The New York Times, “The Kronos Quartet has broken the boundaries of what string quartets do.”  

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