The Royal Conservatory’s 21C Festival is back for another year of bringing together classical music with disparate other genres like rock, hip-hop, turntablism and much more. Its eight concerts will take place over five nights, from May 20-24. Of the extensive lineup announced last night, we’ve picked a few highlights.
1. Off The Score: Stewart Copeland and Jon Kimura Parker
The festival is bringing star power to its opening night concert. The Police drummer collaborates with the renowned Canadian pianist in this exciting match-up featuring works by Copeland and Parker alongside ones by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bach, Rvel, Piazzolla and Paul Schoenfield. It’s sure to be a percussively fascinating good time.
May 20 in Koerner Hall.
2. The Bicycle Opera Project
This group bicycles to various communities throughout Ontario to perform new Canadian opera works. At the Conservatory, they’ll offer up the world premiere of Chris Thornborrow’s Ride Of The Bicycle Bells – outdoors in the Reta Lila Weston Music Court and then on Koerner Hall’s main stage. They’ll then move to Mazzoleni Concert Hall to perform works by James Rolfe, Cecilia Livingston, Ivan Barbotin, Tobin Stokes and Dean Burry.
May 21 in the Reta Lila Weston Music Court, Koerner Hall and Mazzoleni Hall.
3. Toronto DJ extraordinaire Skratch Bastid and Afiara Quartet
Entitled Spin Cycle, this show has three stages. In the first, the Afiara Quartet plays world premieres of works by Dinuk Wijeratne, Laura Silberberg, Rob Teehan and Kevin Lau. In the second, Skratch Bastid re-purposes and re-envisions the works with a heavy dose of scratching. In the last stage, each of the four composers responds to Skratch Bastid’s remixes with new parts written for Afiara to play with (or against) Bastid’s contributions. Collaboration!
May 23 at Mazzoleni Hall.
For full programming details and ticketing information, visit the website here.
