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Marco Polo Project Launches Toronto Season Toronto, September 5, 2008 —If Marco Polo had carried an iPod on his travels to China, what kind of tunes would he have listened to? Inspired by this idea, Toronto Consort Artistic Director David Fallis has assembled the elements for The Marco Polo Project, the ultimate east-meets-west musical travelogue, to open the 2008-2009 season. The members of the Consort are joined by Kavkasia, a vocal trio specializing in traditional music from the Republic of Georgia, and a trio of musicians performing on traditional Chinese instruments. The Marco Polo Project takes place at 8:00 pm, October 3 and 4, 2008 at Trinity St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West. Tickets are available through the box office at (416) 964-6337. For more information, visit www.torontoconsort.org The Marco Polo Project is an example of the inventive programming that David Fallis — short-listed for the 2008 Toronto Arts Council Foundation Awards — is known for. Marco Polo was a famous 13th-century Venetian explorer and merchant who travelled through the middle East and southern Russia to China. The Marco Polo Project is a creative re-imagining of the extraordinary music he would have heard from other cultures, and includes a script with selected readings from The Travels of Marco Polo, the Venetian’s own account of his adventures. Two trios join The Toronto Consort on stage for the opening concert of the season: The first is an ensemble of musicians playing traditional Chinese instruments: Wen Zhao, renowned as a master of the pipa — a lute-like instrument; Yu Cheng, traditional Chinese flute player and one of the few players in the world who has mastered the xun (ancient Chinese clay flute); and Yongli Xue, who began her career as a child prodigy of the zheng (Chinese zither), and now resides in Canada. This concert marks the first time these three players have been heard together in Canada. The second group is Kavkasia, a traditional Georgian vocal trio led by Toronto singer Alan Gasser with Stuart Gelzer and Carl Linich. The members of Kavkasia have each been made a State Prize Laureate in Georgia, and the trio was awarded the Silver Medal of the Georgian Ministry of Culture “for profound knowledge of the music of Georgia and for its role in the popularization of the music around the world”. Kavkasia’s latest recording, The Fox and the Lion, won a rave review from BBC Music Magazine: "… lush and resonant, revealing the Trio's nimble counterpoint, angular voice-leading, and strident chord tunings in all their dissonant glory." Each of the traditional ensembles performs alone and with the Toronto Consort, which will also perform selections of European medieval music that would have been familiar during Marco Polo’s lifetime. The Toronto Consort presents The Marco Polo Project,
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