Event Details

The Kindred Spirits Orchestra has performed since 2009, to a great acclaim, sold-out audiences, and standing ovations at the legendary CBC Glenn Gould Studio in downtown Toronto. As of the 2011, the Kindred Spirits Orchestra has also established a 6-concert subscription series at the Flato Markham Theatre, in addition to 3 community-outreach and 2 educational concerts. Led by the charismatic Maestro Kristian Alexander, the Kindred Spirits Orchestra is enjoying an enormous popularity among York Region's residents and continues to attract avid audiences across the Greater Toronto Area.

The Kindred Spirits Orchestra performs a wide range of compositions by Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Handel, Tchaikovsky, Haydn, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and many others. Ardent supporter of contemporary music, the Kindred Spirits Orchestra created, also in 2011, Markham Contemporary Music Festival, an annual event that has brought to life great pieces of the 20th century by Lutoslavsky, Stravisnky, Philip Glass, Honegger as well as by illustrious Canadian composers such as Garry Kulesha, Brian Current, Larysa Kuzmenko, Daniel Friedman, Kevin Lau, and Constantine Caravassilis. During the past few years alone, the orchestra has regularly worked with internationally renowned soloists such as pianists Christina Quilico, James Parker and Maxim Bernard, violinists Jacques Israelievitch, Joelle Kee and Marc Djokic, cellist Rachel Mercer, soprano Rebecca Whelan, and tenor Keith Klassen, among many others.

This application is for the first Markham New Music Festival. The Festival will feature chamber music and symphony concerts, as well as other events and activities during the weekend. The Festival will include (1) a series of three concerts (including one outdoors at Unionville Park), presenting compositions from Canadian composers as well as Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Boulez, Satie, Berg, Bernstein, Gershwin, etc.; (2) lectures in both English and French at the old Unionville Library Centre; (3) a all-day workshop on contemporary compositional techniques; (4) a documentary screening; and (5) pre- and post- concert talks and discussions. In addition, the Festival programming will be enriched by the opportunity for the audience to visit (i) the extensive collection of world musical instruments at the International Music Academy Music Gallery; and (ii) the Markham Museum and its collection of music-related artifacts.