The Royal Conservatory announced the concert line up for the 2016/17 season last night.  As usual it’s a very eclectic mix with over 100 concerts in a rather staggering variety of genres.  The one loose them is the Canada Sesquicentennial with 70% or so of the line up having some CanCon.  Here are the highlights for the classical vocal music fan.

Koerner Hall will feature recitals by Deb Voigt (November 11th) and Natalie Dessay (May 2nd) plus Phillippe Jaroussky with Les Violins du Roy (April 13th).

The GGS fall opera is Viardot’s Cendrillon with Peter Tiefenbach as music director in Mazzoleni Hall (November 18th and 19th).  The big spring production, at Koerner, will be Piccini’s La Cecchina with Les Dala conducting (March 15th and 17th).  No word on directors yet.  There’s also the GGS Vocal Showcase in Mazzoleni Hall on February 4th.

The Songmasters series in Mazzoleni Hall features three Sunday afternoon concerts:

• Nathalie Paulin and Monica Whicher with a French and English program (October 23rd)
• Adrianne Pieczonka and rachel Andrist with Die Winterreise (February 12th)
• Jason Howard and Andrew Haji with songs from the British Isles (March 19th)

These Songmasters concerts are only $25.  That’s right $25 gets you Adrianne Pieczonka singing Die Winterreise in an intimate 240 seat hall with great acoustics.

There’s going to be a series of free concerts in Mazzoleni Hall on the first Sunday of each month.  One that sounds fun is called Bohemians in Brooklyn and is described as a chamber musical about Auden, Britten and friends in Brooklyn in the early 40s.  It’s by Tom Allen (the CBC one, not the Durham one).  That’s on May 7th.

Finally, at least partly in response to the late, unlamented Stephen Harper’s jibe about “new stock” Canadians (that’s me folks!), the Conservatory is creating the New Canadian Global Music Orchestra.  The idea is to take advantage of the astonishing range of musical traditions in Toronto.  The orchestra will be made up of virtuosi from different musical backgrounds and will be challenged to create new types of musical collaboration.  Auditions will start in September with a concert on June 2nd in Koerner Hall and, hopefully, a Canada wide tour to follow.

Full details of the entire season can be found here.