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Soundstreams | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Chamber Concerts Canada |
| Origin | Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Genres | Classical |
| Occupation(s) | Presenter |
| Years active | 1982–present |
| Members | Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney |
| Website | www.soundstreams.ca |
Soundstreams is a Toronto-based music presenter that commissions, develops, and showcases the work of contemporary Canadian and international composers. It was established in 1982 by Artistic Director and oboe player Lawrence Cherney, and has commissioned more than 150 works over the past three decades. [1] [2]
A season features a concert series at Koerner Hall, with each concert featuring usually featuring a world premiere by a Canadian composer, as well as Canadian and international performers. Composers who have written for Soundstreams include R. Murray Schafer, Steve Reich, Harry Somers, James Rolfe, and Alexina Louie. Performers have included Gryphon Trio, soprano Shannon Mercer, percussion ensemble Nexus. [3]
Other projects have included festivals and conferences such as the Northern Encounters festival, University Voices, Toronto Fanfare Project, and Cool Drummings percussion festival and conference, as well as new productions such as Thomson Highway and Melissa Hui’s Cree opera Pimooteewin: The Journey and R. Murray Schafer’s Dora Award-winning site-specific opera The Children’s Crusade. [4] [5]
Soundstreams has been nominated for three Juno Awards, is the recipient of two Lieutenant Governor’s Awards for the Arts, and Lawrence Cherney is a member of the Order of Canada. [6]
Soundstreams is the producer of the first-ever Cree language opera Pimooteewin: The Journey with libretto by Tomson Highway and music by Melissa Hui. [5] In October 2016, a Soundstreams concert celebrated the versatility of the modern flute, [7] and in 2017 the company mounted a music and theatre production about the life and ideas of Quebecois composer Claude Vivier. [8]
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Tomson Highway is an Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, children's author and musician. He is best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, both of which won the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.
Raymond Murray Schafer was a Canadian composer, writer, music educator, and environmentalist perhaps best known for his World Soundscape Project, concern for acoustic ecology, and his book The Tuning of the World (1977). He was the first recipient of the Jules Léger Prize in 1978.
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Lawrence Cherney, CM is a Canadian oboist and the current Artistic Director of Soundstreams Canada. A proponent of new music in Canada, Cherney commissioned more than 30 new works for oboe during his career. He is a charter member of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and a founding member of the York Winds.
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Phyllis Margaret Mailing was a Canadian mezzo-soprano, teacher, and patron of classical music. She had a distinguished career as a singer, performing across North America and Europe.