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After the tremendous success of last year's festival, Music
at Sharon will be back again this summer! For the second
year Stephen Cera has been appointed
as artistic director to create a musical feast inspired by the
Temple's history and designed to showcase its extraordinary
acoustics. The festival offers high quality summer concerts
not found anywhere else in Ontario, thus providing a unique
musical experience to the residents of Toronto and the GTA.
Beloved Quebec soprano Suzie
LeBlanc will open the festival with "Songs of Earth
and Heaven" on Sunday, June 1, at 3pm. She was recently
described by The Australian as
"…a singer of the highest quality, she dazzled and
entranced with her impeccable vocal control and a sound of wonderful
beauty…This was music-making to live for." The concert
programme includes songs by Mozart, Poulenc, Faure, Debussy,
Messiaen, and Weill, all accompanied on the piano by Robert
Kortgaard.
The second concert of the festival will commemorate
the 100th anniversary of the birth of Olivier Messiaen. Pianist
Louise Bessette, violinist Olivier
Thouin, cellist Yegor Dyachkov,
and clarinetist Simon Aldrich will
present the Quartet for the End of Time.
Also on the bill is a world premiere by the young Quebec composer
Nicolas Gilbert. An homage to Messiaen, this new work is scored
for the same instrumentation as the Quartet.
Beethoven's youthful Clarinet Trio in B-flat, Opus 11, will
complete the programme on Sunday, June 8, at 3pm.
Works by Mozart, Ibert, Poulenc, Eliot Weisgarber,
and Gershwin will be explored by the award winning pianist Sara
Davis Buechner on Sunday, June 15, at 3pm. The Washington
Post enthused: "Buechner's performance had a beauty
that might have taken even Mozart's breath away." Buechner,
a consummate performer, is always charming and engaging on stage.
A very special concert, titled "Beginning
to See the Light", with a start time of 6pm on Sunday,
June 22, will close the festival. Celebrating their 10th Anniversary,
True North Brass initially burst
on to the scene in 1997, and has since solidified its reputation
as one of the world's finest brass ensembles. Proudly Canadian
in focus and expression with an international outlook, they
will perform a delightful mix of classical, traditional, Canadian
and jazz music including the historic Tunes
of the Sharon Band. The concert, marking the Summer Solstice,
will take advantage of the unique spatial and architectural
characteristics of the Sharon Temple by positioning the musicians
on a balcony high above the performance space.
Stephen Cera is best
known for his role as vice president, concert music programming,
with Toronto's Livent Inc. where he developed the distinguished
concert season at the George Weston Recital Hall from 1991 -
2000. His connection to Sharon dates back to the late-80s when,
as a CBC Radio music producer, he recorded for broadcast a series
of performances in the Temple, including the Orford Quartet
and renowned Italian pianist Aldo Ciccolini.
A national historic site, the Sharon Temple of
the Children of Peace was built from 1825 - 1831 by a group
of former Quakers who called themselves the Children of Peace.
The Temple was designed to represent their vision of a society
based on the values of peace, equality, and social justice.
The annual summer concert series was founded to celebrate the
Temple's 150th anniversary and lasted initially from 1981 to
1990. Audiences will once again have the opportunity to experience
the musical delights of this intimate 230-seat venue that topped
the Toronto Star's 2006 list of essential Canadian architecture.
The Sharon Temple Museum Society
presents
MUSIC AT SHARON CONCERT SERIES
Artistic Director Stephen Cera
June 1 - June 22, 2008
Temple of the Children of Peace
18974 Leslie Street in Sharon, ON
north of Newmarket near the northern terminus of Hwy. 404
Free Parking
Sunday, June 1, at 3pm: SUZIE LeBLANC, soprano
Sunday, June 8, at 3pm: MESSIAEN CENTENARY CONCERT
Sunday, June 15, at 3pm: SARA DAVIS BUECHNER, piano
Sunday, June 22, at 6pm: TRUE NORTH BRASS, quintet
Tickets $45
Subscription for all four concerts $150 o Group discounts available
TICKETS ON SALE NOW!
Call the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Customer Service Centre
at 416.597.7840
http://www.sharontemple.ca/
Artists and programmes are subject to change.
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