evening concerts

Sound Explorations

Edwin Outwater and the KWS explore musical environments and landscapes in this remarkable concert combining classic and new. The music focuses on the Romantic landscape in sound with pieces by Mendelssohn, R. Murray Schafer, and Frank Bridge. The experience focuses on the concert hall as an Environment using sound installations, mystery pieces, and other surprises that will shake up the traditions of classical concert-going. 

Turtle Island String Quartet Plays Coltrane

This genre-busting quartet of musicians revives improvisational and compositional chamber traditions that have not been explored since the Classical era, and these facets of their music make their concerts some of the most creative music-making today.

In exploring legendary sax player John Coltrane’s musical legacy, the Turtle Island String Quartet continues its own tradition of employing the string quartet form to shed new light on the timeless joy and beauty contained in the greatest music of the American jazz masters.

This concert is a co-production with Perimeter Institute.

This is a single-ticket concert, and NOT INCLUDED in the Open Ears Festival Pass.  Tickets are $46 for general admission and go on sale Monday February 23rd.

Click here to buy your tickets for this concert.

tranSpectra with Jesse Stewart

tranSpectra is a collective of innovative artists based on an alternative tuning system called the Bohlen-Pierce scale. Performing on unique musical instruments created by instrument-makers Stephen Fox and Gayle Young, as well as instruments designed and built by university architecture and engineering students under the guidance of David Lieberman, the concert will feature new works by Gayle Young, Emily Doolittle, Jascha Narveson, video by Reinhard Reitzenstein and a new work by Peter Hannan with choreographed interpretation by dancer Yvonne Ng, based on the composer's recent experience in Lesotho. The concert will also include works by Owen Bloomfield, Todd Harrop and the North American premiere of Beyond the Horizon by German composer Georg Hajdu, a primary inspiration for the Bohlen-Pierce project. This performance will be preceded by a solo set byJesse Stewart featuring improvisations on natural materials and waterphone.

Fearless Piano

Intrepid pianist Eve Egoyan leads us through the intersection of two media: music and film. Featuring musical-visual pieces from Erik Satie Entr’actes to brand new compositions by Rose Bolton and Maria de Alvear, you'll experience an evening of ambient pleasures with Canada's most adventurous pianist and orchestra.  

Penderecki String Quartet/Dancetheatre David Earle

The Penderecki String Quartet presents three 2009 works in this diverse program of music, dance, video and electronics. Based on Homer’s The Odyssey, Toronto composer Omar Daniel’s Penelope and Odysseus moulds the activities of the PSQ and dancers with a variety of electronic manipulators as he examines themes of separation and crisis.  Circuit–bending and video art are the focus of Vancouver’s Giorgio Magnanensi’s ‘teatro dell’udito VI’, a tale without beginning and ending creating a permeable space for things just to be and become as they are. And Winnipeg composer David Scott presents a memorial to his sister’s life and work, centering on her vision for a Light Garden: a landscape project of stunning warmth and resonance on the Saskatchewan highway.

Biography

The Penderecki String Quartet was formed in Poland in 1986 and has become one of the most celebrated chamber ensembles of their generation. Their recent schedule has included concerts in New York, Amsterdam, St. Petersburg, Paris, Los Angeles, Atlanta, as well as appearances at international festivals in Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Venezuela, and China. The PSQ champions music of our time, performing a wide range of repertoire from Haydn to Zappa as well as premiering over 100 new works to date. Described by Fanfare Magazine as "an ensemble of formidable power and keen musical sensitivity", the PSQ's diverse discography includes the chamber music of Brahms and Shostakovich (Eclectra and Marquis labels) and the recently released Bartok cycle. They enter their 16th year as Quartet-in-Residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada.

The Penderecki String Quartet performs under exclusive representation of Richard Paul Concert Artists.

The Penderecki String Quartet wishes to thank the Ontario Arts Council for its ongoing support through the Presenter/Producer Project Grant Fund.

The Penderecki String Quartet is Quartet-In-Residence at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

David Lang: Elevated

Dark, emotional and exquisitely beautiful, 'Elevated' is a multi-media collaboration between New York composer David Lang (Bang On A Can, La La La Human Steps - Amélia) and four giants of contemporary visual arts: pioneer William Wegman, experimental filmmaker Bill Morrison, conceptual artists Matt Mullican and Doug Aitken (whose most recent work, Sleepwalkers, is a large scale video installation continuously displayed on the exterior walls of New York’s Museum of Modern Art). Lang used his pieces as a way to open up different pathways to these artists and their work, setting an early (and very controversial) Wegman video to music, and giving music to Morrison and Mullican for them to build new visuals around. Aitken’s film is accompanied by David’s version of the Velvet Underground classic Heroin for cello and voice, with original lyrics by Lou Reed. Presented by Toronto’s Contact Contemporary music in conjunction with Montreal’s Bradyworks, these pieces create a world that is stunning, moody and sometimes very disturbing.

Pre-concert artist talk with David Lang at 6:30 pm. Free to all ticket holders.

Gamelan (and on): The Enduring Legacy of Lou Harrison

This special concert will feature the Evergreen Club Gamelan Ensemble and guests performing contemporary music for Indonesian gamelan ensemble and percussion written and inspired by American composer Lou Harrison (1917-2003), who pioneered the gamelan’s use in Western contexts. Also included in the programme is traditional and contemporary Indonesian music and the world premiere of a work by Gordon Monahan for prepared piano and gamelan.