The year that was in Toronto arts world
As the Toronto arts world takes its final bows of 2015, it looms not exactly like the year of living dangerously, but definitely the year of living tentatively, transitionally, cautiously and above all in interim gear.
There were a few cases of an orderly changing of the guard, such as at the Shaw Festival, where the incoming Tim Carroll is waiting in the wings to take over from the phenomenally successful Jackie Maxwell, who will end her decade-long reign as artistic director in Niagaraon-the-Lake with the 2016 season.
But interim became the name of the game for Luminato, where Lucille Joseph filled in for several key months between the departure of founding CEO Janice Price and the arrival of new CEO Anthony Sargent; and at the Sony Centre, where Mark Hammond presides while the city decides how to merge the Sony with two other civic-owned theatres.
And for the better part of the year, the city’s two largest museums — the Royal Ontario Museum and the Art Gallery of Ontario — have been on interim pause, following the exits of their CEOs, Janet Carding from the ROM and Matthew Teitelbaum from the AGO.
Teitelbaum, who moved to Boston, went out on a high: the wonderful Basquiat show, which brought New York street culture to the Grange. The ROM had the dubious distinction of taking a pass on a oncein-a-lifetime show, The Greeks, which dazzled visitors in Ottawa, Montreal and Chicago with treasures of the ancient world.
Jeff Melanson, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s new CEO, set off the free-speech controversy of the year when he cancelled the appearance of Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa because of what some regarded as her offensive comments on the Internet about warring factions in Eastern Europe. But later in the year, the TSO had a hugely successful fundraising gala. Near disaster was avoided when legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman bowed out for health reasons; his longtime friend Pinchas Zukerman (former music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa) tweaked his schedule, changed some flights and took over Perlman’s gig at Roy Thomson Hall.
Luminato artistic director Jorn Weisbrodt drew crowds of young adventurers to the Hearn, the de- commissioned generating plant on the eastern waterfront in Toronto’s Port Lands, for the Unsound Festival. And he produced R. Murray Schafer’s almost insanely huge epic Apocalypsis at the Sony Centre, a $1.5-million legacy project about the fiery end of the world that won’t be forgotten by those who saw it. Alas, David Byrne’s Contemporary Color bombed at the Air Canada Centre and the hub at David Pecaut Square was eerily underpopulated some June nights.
But in July Panamania, the culture program of the Pan Am Games, drew crowds of 20,000 nightly for free concerts in Nathan Phillips Square. And theatre lovers got a boost as well. One of the most provocative and daring offerings of the Panamania program was The Watershed, which examined the issue of whether the oilsands are endangering our fresh water and whether the Harper government was trying to stifle investigation of that question.
The play, by Annabel Soutar, was a risky business, since it was staged by Chris Abraham, artistic director of Crow’s Theatre, while he and his colleagues were awaiting word from Ottawa on its funding application for its planned new theatre centre at Dundas and Carlaw. Luckily, the grant was approved by the Conservatives and has now been given the blessing of the new Trudeau government.
The best news of 2015 for the arts was the election of Justin Trudeau, with indications that sunny ways will extend to culture, because it shapes our identity and shows the world who Canadians are. Trudeau has promised to boost funding for the CBC, the Canada Council, Telefilm Canada and the National Film Board. And Mélanie Joly, his new minister of Canadian Heritage, is enjoying a honeymoon with the country’s arts leaders. Now for a change, Toronto has culture-friendly regimes at city hall, at Queen’s Park and on Parliament Hill.
Venue of the year honours go to Koerner Hall where on consecutive nights in December executive director Mervon Mehta programmed tributes to Oscar Peterson (on what would have been his 90th birthday) and Frank Sinatra (on what would have been his 100th birthday). Mehta, whose programming savvy is the perfect match for architect Marianne McKenna’s visually and acoustically exquisite hall, made this the doubleheader of the year.
For me, the high point of the weekend, and maybe the year, was Brent Carver’s achingly dramatic delivery of the song “You and Me (We Wanted it All)” at the Sinatra concert. mknelman@thestar.ca