On Thursday evening the preview event for this year’s Toronto Summer Music, scheduled for July 9th to August 1st, took place at Heliconian Hall.  There were short performances and, of course, more info about the programme which likely hit most attendees’ mailboxes the day before.

The entertainment basically came in two halves.  There was chamber music from Artistic Director and violinist William Fedkenheuer with cellist Juliana Moroz and pianist Rachael Kerr.  There were also three rather lovely arias/songs from mezzo-soprano Nicole Percifield with Steven Philcox at the piano.

But what of the festival programme?  The full thing is available here.  There’s the usual mix of vocal, chamber music and piano concerts with a few surprises but maybe less “out there” stuff than the last couple of years.  Opening night at Koerner Hall features William Christie and Les arts florissants with Charpentier’s La descente d’Orphée aux enfers.  Is that, you may well be asking, the same piece that just a week ago you told us that Opera Atelier would perform in October, also at Koerner Hall?  Well yes it is.  Go figure.

The other big vocal gig is at Koerner on July 16th when Lawrence Brownlee, Erin Morley and Malcolm Martineau will perform their much toured Golden Age programme.  Basically it’s a line up of French and Italian 19th century arias and duets.  Pretty standard fare for the most part but from a couple of really good singers.  This year’s Art of Song fellows are Sasha Cooke and Warren Jones and they’ll perform a mainly American programme at Walter Hall on July 13th.

There’s always something a bit off centre at TSM and this year I’d say it comes in three flavours.  Kleztory play Walter Hall on July 13th.  On July 27th Finnish musician Pekka Kuusisto and American singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane; aka Council, will perform a programme that mixes voice, instruments and electronics.  And on July 21st William Fedkenheuer will be joined by pianist Orion Weiss in a programme that combines classical violin and country fiddle.

There’s lots of chamber music for all tastes too.  Jonathan Crow is back and so are Philip Chiu and Jon Kimura Parker.  Inon Barnatan has a solo piano recital.  There’s at least a quartet of quartets (not a TS Eliot reference).  In terms of repertory, here’s everything from Bach to John Corigliano!

Saturdays will be taken up with Regen concerts with a mix of art song and chamber music on the 11th and 18th and a chamber only line up on the 25th.  Steven Philcox told us that the applications for the Art of Song programme exceeded previous years in quantity and quality and that we can expect a more gender balanced line up of singers this year!  Maybe there has been a soprano cull.

There’ll also be lunch hour concerts and Shuffle Hour (5pm) concerts at Heliconian (line up TBA) and all the usual community and kids’ activities.