The Caledon Music Competition returns in 2025 from August 2 to 31, bringing a few of Canada’s high classical music expertise to the pastoral locale. The theme this 12 months is “Inside Tales” — an exploration of storytelling via music.
How does music inform tales, and take its viewers to a unique place and mindset? That concept is explored via a wide range of works, together with each conventional and beloved works of the classical canon and a few of its brightest hidden gems.
We spoke to Creative Director Terry Lim about this 12 months’s lineup.
Competition at a Look
August 2: Davis Household Farm — Tune and Dance
Surrounded by the attractive blooms of a sunflower farm on a gorgeous summer season night, viewers members will be capable to sip drinks as they benefit from the music. There’ll even be a crescent moon after the glory of the sundown.
Soprano Emily Vondrejsova performs a wide range of songs from the jazzy type of Edith Piaf’s La Vie en rose to pop music, jazz classics and extra. This system additionally contains Arvo Half’s minimalist Fratres for cello and piano, and two tangos by Piazzolla: Adios Nonino for solo piano, and The 4 Seasons. The works will probably be carried out by Competition Artists Joonghun Cho (piano), Terry Lim (flute), and Amahl Arulanandam (cello).
August 17: Alton Mill Arts Centre — Youthful Passions (Aspect-by-Aspect)
Throughout the Competition, Lim and the Competition Artists work with younger artists who’re largely beneficial by the Competition Artists. They’re paired as much as be taught from a working skilled.
The spotlight of the Aspect-by-Aspect expertise is that this live performance, the place their collective efforts are showcased. Competition Artists Luri Lee (violin), Christina Choi (violin), Carolyn Blackwell (viola), and Drew Comstock (cello) will probably be on stage with 4 younger artists.
The repertoire will embrace Mendelssohn’s Octet, and Bach’s Double Concerto for 2 violins in D minor, together with a choice of vocal repertoire from Handel, Mozart, Bellini, and Dvorak carried out by Emily Vondrejsova, who’s a local of close by Erin, Ontario.
August 23: Westminster United Church — A Journey into Cabaret and Broadway
Violinist Luri Lee, cellist Peter Eom and pianist Joonghun Cho carry out works revolving round cabaret and Broadway. That features American composer Paul Schoenfeld’s Café Music Music for violin, cello and piano, a trio he developed performing cabaret music with pals at a café in Minneapolis. Additionally on the invoice is a sequence of Gershwin items, together with the Porgy & Bess Fantasy for violin and piano alongside some solo piano works, and Prutsman’s chamber work 4 Broadway Showtunes for cello and piano.
August 31: Alton Mill Arts Centre — The Grand Finale
The live performance closes with a optimistic notice, and a program centred round Bach’s iconic Brandenburg Concerto No. 4, one of the crucial beloved works of all time. Lim has paired the Concerto with the Haydn-Mozart Toy Symphony, together with Mozart’s Flute Quartet in D Main, that includes flutist Sarah Moon, and Vaughan William’s The Lark Ascending. The latter will probably be carried out by Kai Rousseau on violin, the Younger Competition Artist. The opposite Competition Artists performing will embrace Sarah Kim, violin; Douglas Kwon, violin; Laurence Schaufele, viola; Daniel Hamin Go, cello, and Terry Lim on flute.
Terry Lim: The Interview
In programming the season, Lim says that he establishes the theme first, after which assembles repertoire that works into it — some thematic, others with out an apparent backstory. The musicians are handpicked.
There’s a course of whereas he’s creating the packages. “Let’s put collectively Mendelssohn’s octet,” he begins. Mendelssohn wrote the piece whereas he was in his teenagers, and with the main points, he creates a narrative to weave across the music.
It’ll be a part of the Aspect-by-Aspect Live performance, which options teenage musicians.
“I simply wished to develop our packages with younger artists,” he says. “It’s simply labored out properly,” he says of the initiative. “They get an opportunity to play some solos,” he provides of the younger artists.
The academic facet of the competition is one thing Lim want to increase upon — relying on the funding scenario, which, as he notes, is ever altering.
Together with the younger artists of the Aspect-by-Aspect program, Younger Competition Artist Kai Rousseau performs within the competition finale. Native artist Kai Rousseau, who hails from Belfountain, is finding out in the direction of a Grasp’s diploma in music on the College of Toronto. “It offers him an opportunity to play with excessive stage professionals,” Lim notes.
“That’s one thing that I wish to develop.”
The Music
The music was chosen by Lim along with the Competition Musicians.
“Every musician had tales behind the works they wished to carry out,” he says. “I’m just about pleased with all of the live shows.”
The artists will speak somewhat in regards to the repertoire they may carry out, and why they selected the particular works.
“Annually, I attempt to do one thing completely different,” he says. “The enjoyable half is programming and placing issues collectively.”
He says he tries to strike a steadiness between interesting to the out of city and native audiences, a few of whom is probably not so conversant in classical music in any respect. “I attempt to program it in order that they will get pleasure from all of it the way in which to the tip.”
He’s guided by feedback from competition goers of earlier years, who left useful options. As with each advanced endeavour, placing a music competition collectively has a studying curve.
Some particulars come from direct expertise.
“Final 12 months, after we did the sunflower farm for the primary time, I had no concept in regards to the mosquitoes,” laughs Lim, who lives in downtown Toronto. “I used to be taking part in flute, and it stored hitting my head.”
The Competition Expertise
“It’s been actually thrilling to satisfy folks on the market,” Lim says. He’s spent lots of time attending to know the realm and its residents. It’s an ongoing course of. “I take their suggestions very severely.”
He’s additionally turn out to be conversant in the area’s venues to be able to select the fitting one for every live performance.
“I choose sure venues,” Lim says. That features the Davis Farm, the Alton Mills Arts Centre, and Westminster United Church in Orangeville. “Toronto folks don’t find out about [them],” he says. “I take into consideration ambiance. I select specific spots.”
Within the case of the Davis farm, the competition’s relationship goes past that of a easy venue. The Davis household is sponsoring the occasion, and in return, Lim will donate 10% of the ticket gross sales to the Celiac Basis, in honour of one of many members of the family who lives with the illness.
“It’s a gorgeous spot.”
On the Alton Mills Arts Centre, they’ll be performing in an open house with a everlasting roof.
“It someway makes it nearly like a church inside.,” he says. “[There are] weirdly good acoustics on the market.”
- Discover tickets and passes, and extra live performance particulars, [HERE].
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Anya Wassenberg is the Toronto Metropolis Editor at Ludwig Van. Beforehand, she was a contract author with a specialty in tradition and journey for 3 many years, and a artistic writing teacher for Ontariolearn.