Soundstreams 2025/26 season options the same old eclectic mixture of progressive and compelling music that Toronto audiences have come to anticipate of the group for greater than 4 many years.
The performer lineup consists of ensembles and artists like Quatuor Bozzini, Steven Dann, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, and Carla Huhtanen, together with a few of the metropolis’s most in-demand musicians and singers in Ensemble Soundstreams and Soundstreams Choir 21.
The listing of composers consists of Canadian and worldwide luminaries: Benjamin Britten, Philip Glass, Arvo Pärt, R. Murray Schafer, and Claude Vivier, together with Subsequent Technology Composers Andrew Balfour, Cassandra Miller, Zosha Di Castri, Nicole Lizée, Anna Pidgorna, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and Ana Sokolović.
LvT spoke to Inventive Director Lawrence Cherney, who based Soundstreams again in 1982, about this yr’s lineup.
Soundstreams 2025/26 at a Look
Mass For The Endangered (November 22, 2025)
That includes David Fallis, Conductor, Soundstreams Choir 21, and Ensemble Soundstreams
Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered has been a lot lauded each for its music and its compelling examination of humanity’s impression on the pure world.
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir: Arvo Pärt At 90 (February 14, 2026)
Tõnu Kaljuste, Inventive Director
The world-renowned Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, with founder and conductor Tõnu Kaljuste, make a return to Toronto to rejoice Arvo Pärt’s ninetieth birthday. Together with Pärt’s most celebrated works, the live performance consists of music by Philip Glass, Luciano Berio, and others, and the world premiere of a brand new Soundstreams fee by Estonian-Canadian composer Riho Esko Maimets.
With Strings Connected: Quatuor Bozzini In Three Premieres (March 21, 2026)
That includes Quatuor Bozzini: Clemens Merkel, violin; Alissa Cheung, violin; Stéphanie Bozzini, viola; and Isabelle Bozzini, cello
This system options three world premieres co-commissioned with New York’s Time:Spans Competition and Montreal’s Le Vivier by Canadian composers Taylor Brook, Zosha Di Castri, and Cassandra
Miller. Additionally on this system: the world premieres of six brief new works by members within the Soundstreams Bridges Rising Composers Program, developed beneath the mentorship of Zosha Di Castri and Cassandra Miller.
Love Songs (April 9. 2026)
With David Fallis, Music Director; Carla Huhtanen, soprano; Gregory Oh, piano; and Noam Bierstone, percussion
Claude Vivier’s Love Songs and Shiraz varieties the guts of this program for seven singers, piano and percussion that explores love, identification, connection, and censorship.
In Terra Pax (Could 9, 2026)
That includes Anna Pidgorna, vocals; Steven Dann, viola; Anna Sagalova, piano; and Ensemble Soundstreams
In Terra Pax (On Earth, Peace) is a program curated by Anna Pidgorna — winner of the New Voices Curator Mentorship Program — that displays on warfare and its destruction, and the resilience to go on. Pidgorna performs as composer and vocalist, with displaced Ukrainian pianist Anna Sagalova (now based mostly in Vancouver), and violist Steven Dann.
Inventive Director Lawrence Cherney: The Interview
Two bigger themes resonate all through the forty third season: chatting with social points, and analyzing human and non secular relationships.
“There’ll at all times be overarching themes in a given season,” Cherney says. “Subsequent yr, there’s quite a bit that’s related to social justice.” Notably, that features the season’s opening live performance that includes Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Mass for the Endangered. “It’s a live performance that’s reflecting on what we’re doing to the environment.” It’s not essentially an apocalyptic view. “We don’t at all times have a chance in music to mirror on larger issues.”
A lot later within the season comes In Terra Pax. “It’s about warfare and peace, and resilience.”
Whereas the themes revolve across the present state of affairs in Ukraine, it’s a way more widespread theme. “There’s lots of people on the earth who’re dying who shouldn’t be dying.”
It’s not about preaching, although, it’s extra about reflection. “We’re not setting ourselves as much as educate anyone something,” he says. The information is already filled with headlines about battle from so many locations on the earth. “We’re not educating individuals issues, however we hope we will forged mild on one thing on issues which have turn out to be a bit obscured,” he provides.
“What the humanities can do, is we may also help audiences and ourselves to mirror on issues. Artwork for artwork’s sake is great however this season has connections to different points,” he says.
“The opposite theme isn’t actually love, however it’s about human relationships, non secular relationships.”
Marking a significant milestone is included into that blend.
“We’ve had a really particular relationship with the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir,” Cherney says. It will likely be the eighth time they’ve appeared on a Soundstreams program. Their most up-to-date Toronto live performance, in 2024, was bought out.
Alongside together with his milestone birthday celebration, Arvo Pärt’s work has a non secular dimension. “Regardless of your perception system, by some means Arvo Pärt touches us.”
The Love Songs repertoire is much less about spirit, and extra about humanity. “This one is extra all the way down to earth, about relationships amongst us.”
Claude Vivier’s Love Songs and Shiraz is the guts of this system. “It’s humorous, however it’s additionally a profound take a look at what love means.”
Different items embrace works by Ana Sokolovic and Nicole Lizée. “Her piece on this system is kind of a distinction,” he says of the latter. “It’s known as the filthy 15.” It refers to a listing of songs that had been urged for banning in the US, and consists of quotes from Frank Zappa opining on censorship, amongst different issues.
“Once more, it’s, like a lot of Nicole’s work, one thing of a parody.”
Canadian Composers
The work of Canadian composers is peppered all year long’s program of 5 concert events.
“That’s what we’re on the earth to do, is to foster Canadian music,” says Cherney.
It’s not solely about together with Canadian works, it’s about placing them into a global context.
“I believe we do the most effective for Canadian creators once we put them on a world stage,” he says. “We put them along with the world’s finest,” he provides. “We’ll program a really well-known worldwide composer, however usually we’ll fee a brand new work that shall be carried out on that very same program.”
He factors out that the live performance with Estonian Philharmonic Choir features a newly commissioned work by Estonian-Canadian composer Riho Esko Maimets.
“It’s an important alternative, however it’s additionally an important problem,” Cherney says. “Beneath all of it, we’re saying we have now expertise on this nation that is the same as expertise that’s on the market on the earth. The Soundstreams stage is in a way reflecting the world,” he provides.
New Music
Introducing audiences to new music of any style is a problem.
“We even have a chance to present context for brand spanking new music,” Lawrence explains “There’s great new music being written in every single place.” Many new composers, he factors out, are recognized of their space, however not outdoors, and never abroad.
“Our platform is an oportunity.”
The artwork of programming lies in providing themes that assist audiences make sense of the music and its message.
“We attempt to give a context.”
He mentions Benjamin Britten’s iconic Lachrymae, a part of this system for In Terra Pax. “The theme is bang on for the context,” he says. The piece for viola and string orchestra makes use of the solo instrument’s tonal vary utilizing quite a lot of strategies, with colors that lean in direction of Jap European music. It makes the proper accompanying piece to the live performance’s important work, a fee by Pidgorna for voice, piano and string orchestra that’s influenced by the Ukrainian custom of feminine lamentation singing.
“It’s a chance for us to assist individuals to discover a method in,” he says. Generally, a bit doesn’t join just because it’s not the fitting surroundings for it. “It’s at all times straightforward responsible audiences,” he says.
“We as live performance producers have an important duty to suppose arduous about creating an expertise for the viewers to understand each work on a program.” Connecting works through themes and concepts provides to the expertise from an viewers perspective. “A beautiful efficiency could have so many ranges of which means.”
Correctly performed, the viewers ought to merely get pleasure from a seamless, straightforward form of stream of sounds and concepts. Later, they may surprise about the way it was all put collectively.
Quatuor Bozzini: Canadians within the Highlight
The live performance that includes Quatuor Bozzini consists of works co-commissioned by three artists Cherney calls “three stars of Canadian music” — London-based Cassandra Miller, Zosha Di Castri (a full professor at Columbia in addition to a performer), and Victoria-based Taylor Brook.
“No one in every of them appears like the opposite. There’s actual distinction in aesthetic and elegance.”
Miller and Di Castri have earlier written music for the Bozzinis. “The quartet is kind of adventurous,” Cherney says. “This explicit live performance is fascinating for 2 causes: the music could be very worthwhile. We expect these are three of the true rising stars of Canadian composers,” he says. “This explicit live performance consists of these three works and likewise six brief works by the RBC Bridges Rising Composer program.”
Cassandra and Zosha shall be mentoring the six rising composers, three Canadian and three worldwide, through the week main as much as the live performance.
“They present up with brief, 5 minute works,” he says of the method. Through the week, the six youthful composers obtain mentoring, get assist with potential revisions, and extra.
“It’s fairly fascinating. It’s additionally actually necessary to Soundstreams.”
- Discover extra data, tickets and subscriptions to the Soundstreams 2025/26 season [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
