From Bach to Benny Goodman, Telemann to tango, Toronto Summer Music is back

The halls are alive with the sound of music.

Well, they soon will be as the perennially popular Toronto Summer Music Festival launches its new season on Thursday; almost 50 events spread across 23 days and nine different venues, embracing everything from Bach to Benny Goodman and Telemann to tango with stops along the way to enjoy the music of a vast range of well and unjustly less-renowned composers – dead and alive.

Although the festival was firing on all cylinders last summer it still had to deal with the lingering logistical hurdles of mounting an early post-pandemic festival, including the uncertainty of whether audiences would be willing to return in their normal droves.

“It feels now like we’re returning to real life, post-pandemic,” says Jonathan Crow, founding member of the New Orford String Quartet in 2009, concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra since 2011 and Toronto Summer Music’s artistic director for the past seven years.

“There are bigger events this year and some of the guest artists are perhaps more well known. That return to normal, of presenting the big artists, is really nice for us. It does feel as if we’re going into our first large main festival since 2019.”

From tentative beginnings in 2004 and 2005, and a full-fledged launch the following year, the festival has grown to become a major fixture in Toronto’s live performance calendar.

Toronto Summer Music has a two-pronged but interconnected mission: to program a festival featuring first-rank artists and to operate an academy, a summer intensive that provides high-level training and performance opportunities for emerging musicians as well as adult amateurs. It also aims to promote engagement between musicians and audiences in settings beyond the concert hall.

The festival’s approachable persona has earned it a solid base of loyal attendees and donors, many of whom have come to know each other over the years, almost like an informal family of music lovers who even schedule their summer vacations so as not to clash with Toronto Summer Music.

Some of the festival’s appeal can be attributed to the scope of its offerings.

“There’s a reason we don’t call ourselves Toronto Summer Classical Music or Toronto Summer Chamber Music Festival,” explained Crow. “We believe there should be something for everyone. We want people to be able to go through our brochure and find something they’re sure they’ll enjoy, whether it’s what you might call hardcore string quartet repertoire, or the worlds of opera and even dance.”

The festival has several presentation streams beyond its mainstage events. These include concerts in a smaller venue performed exclusively by academy fellows as well as what Toronto Summer Music calls “ReGeneration” concerts at its home-base venue, Walter Hall, featuring academy fellows onstage with their professional mentors. The Toronto Summer Music Academy’s community program, July 24 to 29, offers a week-long chance for keen amateur musicians to rehearse and perform with professional musicians.

Each year, the festival flies a thematic banner. This year it is “Metamorphosis,” as Crow explained:

“Sometimes a theme guides our programming. This year it was the reverse. We had our regulars coming back and then quite a few newer artists who built their careers during the pandemic, and artists who were more active on social media because there was nothing else they could do during that period; so we have this theme of metamorphosis, a transformation of the artistic landscape through the pandemic.”

With so much to choose from it’s impossible to cherry-pick, but here are a few suggestions to whet the musical appetite.

Ana María Martínez

You don’t have to understand Spanish to enjoy the visceral emotion in Grammy Award-winning, Puerto Rican-born soprano Ana María Martínez’s interpretations of songs by such familiar composers as Joaquín Rodrigo, Manuel de Falla and Carlos Gardel, often dubbed “the father of the tango.” Along with the haunting melody of Manuel Ponce’s “Estrellita,” Martínez, who graces the stages of major opera houses worldwide, will also sing less well known gems. Those wishing to dig deeper into the art of song will want to attend the Walter Hall master class – one of several such throughout the festival – that Martínez is holding at 3 p.m. on Friday for emerging vocal artists in the TSM Academy. (July 10, 7:30 p.m., Walter Hall, Edward Johnson Building, 80 Queens Park)

Quotations

If you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best. We’re not talking musical plagiarism, a muddy concept at the best of times but, in this unusual collaboration, Jonathan Crow and pianist Philip Chiu team up again to examine the enduring impact Beethoven has had on later composers by tracing quotations of his work from Brahms right through to the present day. Crow is also performing in the festival’s opening-night Koerner Hall event on Thursday, an all-star lineup that includes Ukrainian pianist Illia Ovcharenko, winner of Calgary’s 2022 Honens International Piano Competition, and renowned Canadian pianist Jon Kimura Parker, the competition’s music director. Crow will also lead the New Orford String Quartet in its July 26 Walter Hall concert, “Darkness and Light.” (July 17, 7:30 p.m., Edward Johnson Building)

TSM X Banff

Talk about full circle. Through its triennial International String Quartet Competition, initiated in 1983, Alberta’s Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity has become the launch pad for numerous stellar chamber music careers including that of the event’s current executive director, violin and viola virtuoso Barry Shiffman. In 1992, Shiffman was a member of the Toronto-founded, competition-winning St. Lawrence String Quartet. Now he joins the latest winners, the New York-based Isidore String Quartet, for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s beloved but not-so-often performed string sextet, “Souvenir de Florence,” Op.70. The first part of what Crow says will be “a fun evening in an intimate venue with a cool vibe” includes appealing works by Dvorák, Telemann, Bartók and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. The Isidore also performs a stand-alone concert at Walter Hall on July 19. (July 20, 7:30 p.m., the Great Hall, 1087 Queen St. W.)

Tango in the Dark

In a melding of ballet and tango, Canada’s much-travelled dance duo PointeTango – Erin Scott-Kafadar and Alexander Richardson – joins forces with acclaimed Toronto tango music ensemble Payadora to tell a story of two lovers discovering each other as they journey through a city, Buenos Aires, transformed by the shadows of nightfall. Tango dance is intensely rhythm-driven and steamily passionate but, in terms of choreography, expect an injection of unusual balletic athleticism. (July 24, 7:30 p.m., Isabel Bader Theatre, 93 Charles St. W.)

Blazing Stars

Two Canadian international superstars will give recitals in the superb acoustics of Koerner Hall. Angela Hewitt is perhaps the world’s most revered piano interpreter of J.S. Bach and her all-Bach concert includes a thrilling range of the German composer’s keyboard works. Fans of soprano Sondra Radvanovsky were disappointed when in May, for personal reasons, she had to withdraw from the title role in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of “Tosca.” Unless she sings it as an encore, there’s no Puccini show-stopping “Vissi d’arte” on Radvanovsky’s Toronto Summer Music program, but there are riches aplenty in a repertoire that spans vocal musical history, from the 18th-century’s George Frideric Handel to 62-year-old American composer Jake Heggie. (July 25, Angela Hewitt; July 27, Sondra Radvanovsky; both 7:30 p.m., Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. W.)

Free! Free! Free!

Although you’ll need to reserve a seat, the festival features several free events – donations accepted, of course. For example, apart from its regular July 14 Walter Hall evening concert of red-meat repertoire – Haydn, Brahms, plus some contemporary music – America’s Miró Quartet is giving one of the festival’s compact, less formal, 5 to 6 p.m “Shuffle Hour” concerts at Heliconian Club, 35 Hazelton Ave., on July 11. On July 12, they perform an 11 a.m. to noon “Kids’ Concert” at Walter Hall. Master classes are also free admission as are noon-hour Heliconian Club concerts by talented young musicians from Toronto Summer Music’s academy.

Everyone is Welcome

Toronto Summer Music staff are always looking for ways to shake things up and make concerts more broadly appealing and accessible. Sometimes it’s through choosing less formal venues. You can book a pre-show dinner or sip while you listen to clarinet and digital accordion duo Bridge & Wolak’s musical wizardry in their July 18 “Bach to Benny Goodman” concert at Lula Lounge, 1585 Dundas St. W. On July 22 at 11 a.m., the festival partners with Xenia Concerts to present the Rolston String Quartet at Meridian Hall, 1 Front St. E., in a family-friendly performance geared to embrace neurodiversity and disability. Everything about this free event is designed to be as accommodating as possible.

As Toronto Summer Music regulars know, festival passes offer the best deal with savings ranging from 15 to 25 per cent depending on the type and level of pass you choose. See torontosummermusic.com for full program details and ticketing information; call the Royal Conservatory of Music box office, 416-408-0208, or go in person at 273 Bloor St. West.

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