Beethoven, Bach and so much more
Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Royal Conservatory unveil next year’s concert highlights
The classical music world loves anniversaries, so we can anticipate getting up close and personal with Ludwig van Beethoven in 2020.
That’s the word from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Conservatory of Music, which unwrapped their 2019-20 seasons this week. Beethoven’s name features prominently in both, from the best-known works to some obscure ones. That’s what you get for turning 250.
There’s much more than Beethoven, of course. Both organizations announced offerings that satisfy cravings for music beyond the classical canon.
The TSO is riding a wave of interest in live symphony orchestra accompaniment to motion pictures. Its now annual pre-Christmas screening of Home Alone at Roy Thomson Hall will be joined by two more episodes in the Star Wars saga (one in October, the other in May 2020) and by a musical classic, Singin’ in the
Rain (in February 2020). The conservatory’s programming at Koerner Hall includes music of all genres. Two jazz highlights are the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis for the season-opening gala at the end of November, and the world premiere of the uncut Africa Suite by Oscar Peterson in February 2020.
Spanish maestro Gustavo Gimeno, who takes over as music director of the TSO at the start of the 2020-21season, is a featured guest in two great programs. The first is in early October, with rising Italian pianist Beatrice Rana in a program of Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Ravel. He returns in April 2020 with Chinese piano sensation Yuja Wang in an all-Brahms program. Former music directors Peter Oundjian and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (conducting Canadian piano star Jan Lisiecki) are also making return visits. Conductor Sir Andrew Davis, whose association with the TSO goes back to the mid-1970s, oversaw the planning of the 2019-20 season.
Davis returns to the podium several times. The most notable is a concert performance of Jules Massenet’s 1893 opera Thaïs at the beginning of November. “We built this whole performance around soprano Erin Wall,” says Davis of this personal labour of love.
Oundjian will have concertmaster Jonathan Crow as his soloist. It is one of several concerts that will highlight the talents of the orchestra’s principal players.
Although the TSO is not presenting a lot of new music, it has made an effort to find pieces by female composers for several of its concert programs next season.
Like the TSO, the RCM is offering an embarrassment of classical riches. Mervon Mehta, the executive director of performing arts, has filled the Koerner Hall calendar with great soloists, including pianists Andras Schiff (Oct. 26), Yefim Bronfman (Nov. 24) and Angela Hewitt, who will tackle J.S. Bach’s The
Art of the Fugue, an unfinished, late-life masterpiece that rarely gets performed live (April 26, 2020).
Soprano Karina Gauvin returns to Toronto on Nov. 1 with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra.
Koerner Hall will see two purely musical works reimagined in a more theat- rical way: the young Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly will interpret Franz Schubert’s Winterreise with his Le Chimera Project on Jan.17, 2020; and famed opera director Peter Sellars presents the Los Angeles Master Chorale in a Renaissance masterpiece — Orlando di Lasso’s Lagrime di San Pietro — on Feb. 2, 2020.
At a time when fewer people are making long-term commitments for concert tickets, the TSO has repackaged its subscription tickets for 2019-20 with deeper discounts. Details are available at tso.ca.
Details on concerts at the Royal Conservatory can be found at rcmusic.com. Classical music writer John Terauds is a freelance contributor for the Star, based in Toronto. He is supported by the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. Follow him on Twitter @JohnTerauds