The Caledon Music Pageant returns in 2025 from August 2 to 31, bringing a few of Canada’s prime classical music expertise to the pastoral locale. The theme this yr is “Inside Tales” — an exploration of storytelling by music.
How does music inform tales, and take its viewers to a unique place and mindset? That concept is explored by quite a lot of works, together with each conventional and beloved works of the classical canon and a few of its brightest hidden gems.
We spoke to Creative Director Terry Lim about this yr’s lineup.
Pageant at a Look
August 2: Davis Household Farm — Tune and Dance
Surrounded by the beautiful blooms of a sunflower farm on a phenomenal summer season night, viewers members will be capable of sip drinks as they benefit from the music. There’ll even be a crescent moon after the glory of the sundown.
Soprano Emily Vondrejsova performs quite a lot of songs from the jazzy fashion of Edith Piaf’s La Vie en rose to pop music, jazz classics and extra. This system additionally contains Arvo Half’s minimalist Fratres for cello and piano, and two tangos by Piazzolla: Adios Nonino for solo piano, and The 4 Seasons. The works might be carried out by Pageant Artists Joonghun Cho (piano), Terry Lim (flute), and Amahl Arulanandam (cello).
August 17: Alton Mill Arts Centre — Youthful Passions (Aspect-by-Aspect)
Through the Pageant, Lim and the Pageant Artists work with younger artists who’re largely advisable by the Pageant Artists. They’re paired as much as be taught from a working skilled.
The spotlight of the Aspect-by-Aspect expertise is that this live performance, the place their collective efforts are showcased. Pageant Artists Luri Lee (violin), Christina Choi (violin), Carolyn Blackwell (viola), and Drew Comstock (cello) might be on stage with 4 younger artists.
The repertoire will embrace Mendelssohn’s Octet, and Bach’s Double Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, together with a number of vocal repertoire from Handel, Mozart, Bellini, and Dvorak carried out by Emily Vondrejsova, who’s a local of close by Erin, Ontario.
August 23: Westminster United Church — A Journey into Cabaret and Broadway
Violinist Luri Lee, cellist Peter Eom and pianist Joonghun Cho carry out works revolving round cabaret and Broadway. That features American composer Paul Schoenfeld’s Café Music Music for violin, cello and piano, a trio he developed performing cabaret music with mates at a café in Minneapolis. Additionally on the invoice is a collection of Gershwin items, together with the Porgy & Bess Fantasy for violin and piano alongside some solo piano works, and Prutsman’s chamber work 4 Broadway Showtunes for cello and piano.
August 31: Alton Mill Arts Centre — The Grand Finale
The live performance closes with a constructive notice, and a program centred round Bach’s iconic Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, probably the most beloved works of all time. Lim has paired the Concerto with the Haydn-Mozart Toy Symphony, together with Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D Main, that includes flutist Sarah Moon, and Vaughan William’s The Lark Ascending. The latter might be carried out by Kai Rousseau on violin, the Younger Pageant Artist. The opposite Pageant Artists performing will embrace Sarah Kim, violin; Douglas Kwon, violin; Laurence Schaufele, viola; Daniel Hamin Go, cello, and Terry Lim on flute.
Terry Lim: The Interview
In programming the season, Lim says that he establishes the theme first, after which assembles repertoire that works into it — some thematic, others with out an apparent backstory. The musicians are handpicked.
There’s a course of whereas he’s creating the packages. “Let’s put collectively Mendelssohn’s octet,” he begins. Mendelssohn wrote the piece whereas he was in his teenagers, and with the main points, he creates a narrative to weave across the music.
It’ll be a part of the Aspect-by-Aspect Live performance, which options teenage musicians.
“I simply wished to develop our packages with younger artists,” he says. “It’s simply labored out effectively,” he says of the initiative. “They get an opportunity to play some solos,” he provides of the younger artists.
The academic facet of the pageant is one thing Lim wish to develop upon — relying on the funding state of affairs, which, as he notes, is ever altering.
Together with the younger artists of the Aspect-by-Aspect program, Younger Pageant Artist Kai Rousseau performs within the pageant finale. Native artist Kai Rousseau, who hails from Belfountain, is learning in the direction of a Grasp’s diploma in music on the College of Toronto. “It offers him an opportunity to play with excessive stage professionals,” Lim notes.
“That’s one thing that I wish to develop.”
The Music
The music was chosen by Lim along with the Pageant Musicians.
“Every musician had tales behind the works they wished to carry out,” he says. “I’m just about proud of all of the concert events.”
The artists will discuss a bit of in regards to the repertoire they are going to carry out, and why they selected the particular works.
“Every year, I attempt to do one thing totally different,” he says. “The enjoyable half is programming and placing issues collectively.”
He says he tries to strike a steadiness between interesting to the out of city and native audiences, a few of whom might not be so conversant in classical music in any respect. “I attempt to program it in order that they’ll get pleasure from all of it the best way to the tip.”
He’s guided by feedback from pageant goers of earlier years, who left useful options. As with each advanced endeavour, placing a music pageant collectively has a studying curve.
Some particulars come from direct expertise.
“Final yr, after we did the sunflower farm for the primary time, I had no thought in regards to the mosquitoes,” laughs Lim, who lives in downtown Toronto. “I used to be taking part in flute, and it stored hitting my head.”
The Pageant Expertise
“It’s been actually thrilling to satisfy individuals on the market,” Lim says. He’s spent quite a lot of time attending to know the realm and its residents. It’s an ongoing course of. “I take their suggestions very significantly.”
He’s additionally turn out to be conversant in the area’s venues as a way to select the best one for every live performance.
“I choose sure venues,” Lim says. That features the Davis Farm, the Alton Mills Arts Centre, and Westminster United Church in Orangeville. “Toronto individuals don’t find out about [them],” he says. “I take into consideration environment. I pick explicit spots.”
Within the case of the Davis farm, the pageant’s relationship goes past that of a easy venue. The Davis household is sponsoring the occasion, and in return, Lim will donate 10% of the ticket gross sales to the Celiac Basis, in honour of one of many relations who lives with the illness.
“It’s a phenomenal spot.”
On the Alton Mills Arts Centre, they’ll be performing in an open area with a everlasting roof.
“It one way or the other makes it nearly like a church inside.,” he says. “[There are] weirdly good acoustics on the market.”
- Discover tickets and passes, and extra live performance particulars, [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 a long time, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.
