Toronto Summer Music (“TSM”) began as the Silver Creek Music Foundation, the vision of David Beach, former Dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto. The Festival’s inaugural years included two pilot programs in the summers of 2004 and 2005: two-week chamber music workshops in piano, strings, and percussion, alongside public concerts featuring renowned artists such as the Gryphon Trio, Scott St. John, Shauna Rolston, Lydia Wong, and NEXUS.
In the summer of 2006, under the direction of founding Artistic Director Agnes Grossmann, TSM launched its first full four-week Festival, welcoming celebrated international artists including Menahem Pressler, János Starker, the Leipzig String Quartet, and the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Ensemble. In addition to performing, these artists offered masterclasses for aspiring young musicians. Grossmann’s programming was ambitious and eclectic—highlights included a screening of the original silent film version of the 1975 Pina Bausch ballet Le Sacre du Printemps, accompanied live by the piano duo Anagnoson & Kinton. The Festival’s final week also featured fully staged operas with orchestra, conducted by Grossmann herself:Don Giovanni (2006), The Barber of Seville (2007), Ariadne auf Naxos (2008), and an Opera Extravaganza in 2009.
In September 2010, Douglas McNabney, one of Canada’s most active chamber musicians and former Artistic Director at Domaine Forget, succeeded Ms. Grossman as Artistic Director. During his tenure at TSM (2010-2016), McNabney reorganized the Academy as a full-fellowship program for a select group of some of the best emerging chamber musicians, singers, and collaborative pianists. The Academy differentiates itself because of its concentration on performance with international musicians of the highest calibre. Past Academy Mentors include Martin Beaver, Johannes Moser, Gerald Finley, Soile Isokoski, Angela Cheng, Martin Katz, Julius Drake, and more.
The last several Festivals have been programmed thematically, focusing on a different place or period in music history and has featured top-level international guest artists at Koerner Hall, Walter Hall, and other venues around Toronto with over 50 public events over the course of 4 weeks.
Previous Years’ Themes
- 2013: Paris La Belle Epoque
- 2014: The Modern Age
- 2015: Music of the Americas
- 2016: London Calling, Music of Great Britain
- 2017: Canada’s Sesquicentennial
- 2018: Reflections of Wartime
- 2019: Beyond Borders
- 2020: Online Festival
- 2021: New Horizons
- 2022: Inspirations
- 2023: Metamorphosis
- 2024: Voices Within
TSM has collaborated with some of the most celebrated classical music institutions in Canada including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company, and the Banff Centre. In 2015, TSM presented several concerts in collaboration with PANAMANIA, the cultural component of the 2015 PanAm Games.
Festival attendance has increased rapidly, over 68% in the past five years. In 2015, TSM launched a new audience engagement program, a Community Academy for adult amateur musicians funded through the Metcalf Foundation’s competitive Creative Strategies Incubator. As a relatively youthful arts organization, TSM subsists on only 10% government grant funding and has been acclaimed for successful fundraising initiatives and ticket sales. Toronto Summer Music has been honoured with awards including the Mo Davies Award for Excellence in Fundraising from the Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2014.
In 2016, TSM was pleased to announce that acclaimed Canadian violinist Jonathan Crow would become its next Artistic Director. Mr. Crow is concurrently the concertmaster of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and a founding member of the New Orford String Quartet.
TSM, by means of its Festival and Academy programs, provides music lovers with an opportunity to enjoy and deepen their knowledge of classical music by bringing audiences together with international artists and emerging professional musicians and singers for a successful round of concerts, lectures, and masterclasses. No other musical programming of its kind is available in Toronto in the summer months, when artists of international stature come together to mentor young musicians and to give outstanding concerts in a series of public performances.
All information is available in French, upon request.
Toutes les informations sont disponibles en français, sur demande.
Photo by Lucky Tang.