January is looking quite promising on both the music and theatre front but there’s not a lot of opera…  Here’s what’s in my agenda.

January 11th to 14th the TSO have four performances of a concert that includes Mozart’s Requiem with a good looking line up of soloists.

At 7.30pm on the 17th at the Arts and Letters Club, Canzona Chamber Players have a fundraiser to to support the reconstruction of the Kharkiv’s Kotlyarevsky National University of Arts damaged by Russian shelling.  Ukrainian pianist Anna Sagalova will perform.  Full details here.

In the theatre, on the 13th Crow’s Theatre opens a run of an adaptation of André Alexis’ Fifteen Dogs by Marie Farsi.  Previews start on the 10th and the run extends to February 5th.  The following night (14th) ARC Theatre open Marius von Mayenberg’s Martyr in the Aki Studio at the Daniel’s Spectrum.  There’a preview on the 13th and the run lasts until the 29th.

On the 21st Opera by Request are presenting Sir Arthur Sullivan’s rarely heard Ivanhoe.  It’s at College Street United Church at 7.30pm.  Its piano accompaniment and a pretty decent looking cast including Michael Rober-Broder, Dylan Wright and Danie Friesen.

There’s the second half of the 21C festival at the Royal Conservatory from the 20th to the 29th with the usual mix of main stage, cinq à sept and late night concerts.  The shows I’m aiming to catch are:

• A new song cycle by Liza Balkan and Lembit Beecher; After the Fires.  It’s presented in the Temerty Theatre at 5pm on the 21st along with works by Alice Ho, Kristos Hatzis and Eliot Britton.
• New works by Ian Cusson and Stewart Goodyear.  Koerner Hall at 3pm on the 22nd.
• A candle lit late night concert of music by Bekkah Simms and R. Murray Schafer.  Temerty Theatre at 10pm on the 28th.

The COC’s winter season starts with a revival of the Claus Guth production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro on the 27th (runs to February 18th).  The cast includes Luca Pisaroni, Lauren Fagan, Gordon Bintner, Andrea Carroll and Emily Fons.  Harry Bicket conducts.  Here’s my review of the 2016 COC production.

And finally there are lunchtime concerts in the RBA.

• 10th: Soprano Emily Zi Xin Lapin with a multilingual mix of song and poetry.
• 17th: Montreal Concours Musicale Art Song prize winner Meredith Wohlgemuth in recital.
• 31st: The Schulich School’s Early Music Ensemble in a programme of baroque works by Purcell, de Mondonville and others.