The Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Gustavo Gimeno in performance. Photo: Jag Gundu
“On April 23, 1923, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra gave its inaugural concert … at the city’s Massey Hall [in] a program that included Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5,” writes Brad Wheeler in Wednesday’s (3/23) Globe and Mail (Canada). “Next spring, … the orchestra returns to its ancestral home to once again perform Tchaikovsky’s fifth symphony. This time the piece will be conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, the TSO’s current music director…. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the schedule represents the TSO’s first complete season of concerts in more than two years. Other than the one-off affair at Massey Hall, the rest of the performances will take place on the orchestra’s home stage at Roy Thomson Hall…. The orchestra’s centennial celebration actually begins next month with a previously announced homecoming concert featuring Gimeno and former TSO music directors Andrew Davis, Gunther Herbig, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Peter Oundjian…. 2022-23 season highlights include [pianist] Yuja Wang [in] the Canadian premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and … Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3…. Yo-Yo Ma performs [with] Canadian Indigenous musician, composer and musicologist Jeremy Dutcher to reprise their collaborative Honor Song…. Gimeno [and the TSO] will record live performances of Olivier Messiaen’s Turangalila-Symphonie.”
