(TOP ROW) David Fallis, Alison Melville, Michele DeBoer, John Pepper, Paul Jenkins (BOTTOM ROW) Katherine Hill, Terry McKenna, Laura Pudwell, Ben Grossman. | PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Orenstein
Since its founding in 1972, the Toronto Consort has become internationally recognized for its excellence in the performance of medieval, renaissance and early baroque music. Led by eight Artistic Associates, nine of Canada’s leading early music specialists have come together to form the Toronto Consort whose members include both singers and instrumentalists (lute, recorder, guitar, flute, early keyboards and percussion).
Our concerts explore rarely-heard repertoire. We often work in collaboration with other artists, such as actors, dancers and visual artists, to produce concerts with dramatic and visual elements which in many instances provide an historical context for our music.
Each year The Toronto Consort offers a subscription series in Toronto, presented in the beautiful acoustic of the recently-renovated 700-seat Jeanne Lamon Hall, at the Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre in downtown Toronto. We also tour regularly, having been to Europe and Great Britain four times, and frequently across Canada and into the US.
The Toronto Consort has made recordings for the CBC Collection, Berandol, SRI, Dorian, and currently Marquis Classics, with 10 CDs to our credit, two of which have been nominated for Juno awards. The most recent recording (Navidad) was released in 2012. In 2014, we re-released our popular recording The Little Barley-Corne.
Recently, the ensemble has been called upon to produce a considerable amount of music for historical-drama TV series, including The Tudors, The Borgias and The Vikings, all produced by the cable network, Showtime. Also, The Toronto Consort recorded the soundtrack for Atom Egoyan’s award-winning film The Sweet Hereafter.
Unusual for an early music ensemble is our commitment to contemporary repertoire. Canadian composers such as John Beckwith, Lothar Klein and David Keane have written pieces especially for The Toronto Consort.
Whether portraying the haunting emotion of a minstrel’s ballad or capturing the sparkle of a rollicking madrigal, The Toronto Consort brings alive the glorious music of earlier times.
