The Royal Conservatory Of Music Announces Stephen Sondheim's A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC And More This May

The Royal Conservatory of Music closes its 2023-24 concert season with four performances of Stephen Sondheim's A Little Night Music.

Winner of four Tony Awards, this popular musical is presented on Friday, May 26 at 8pm, Saturday, May 27 at 3pm and at 8pm, and Sunday, May 28 at 3pm in Koerner Hall.

After a tremendously successful production of Sondheim's Follies in 2021, Cynthia Dale and Eric McCormack, as well as director Richard Ouzounian, return to Koerner Hall, this time with Music Director David Briskin conducting a full Broadway orchestra. One of Canada's most acclaimed performers, Cynthia Dale (Desiree Armfeldt) has garnered rave reviews as an award-winning actor, singer, and dancer onstage and on screen. Eric McCormack, best known for his roles in Will & Grace, Travelers, and Perception, as well as in The Music Man on Broadway, plays Fredrik Egerman. Theatre critic, director, writer, and lyricist, Richard Ouzounian has been artistic director of five Canadian theatres, including Toronto's Young People's Theatre and CentreStage. David Briskin has been Music Director and Principal Conductor of The National Ballet of Canada since 2006. The all-star cast of Canadian theatre and television icons also includes one of Canada's best known stage actors, Fiona Reid (Madame Armfeldt), Dora Award-winning performer and recording artist Gabi Epstein (Charlotte Magnus), Dora Award and Toronto Theatre Critics Award winner Dan Chameroy (Count Carl-Magnus), and yet another Dora Award-winning actor, singer, and dancer Tess Benger (Petra). The cast is rounded out by 12-year-old Annie Grunwald (Frederika), Indigenous tenor Justan Myers (Henrik), Indian-Canadian actor and singer Sadie Laflamme-Snow (Anne Egerman), tenor Marcel d'Entremont, Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio finalist, baritone Alex Mathews, as well as Royal Conservatory students and alumnae Jonelle Sills (2022-23 Rebanks Fellow), Elena Howard-Scott, and Lillian Brooks. The orchestra will feature a strong complement of Glenn Gould School musicians and Maria Fuller, part of Tapestry Opera's Women in Musical Leadership program, will serve as Assistant Conductor.

The production of A Little Night Music is generously supported by Charles & Marilyn Baillie, Nancy Lockhart, Riki Turofsky & Charles Petersen, Eli and Peter Daniels, and the Rebanks Family Fellowship Program.

Two electric Canadian singers celebrate some of the great women in jazz on May 13 as Kellylee Evans sings Nina Simone and Jackie Richardson sings Abbey Lincoln, Salome Bey, and Diane Brooks. Over the past 15 years, Evans has been winning over audiences with her jazz, R&B, hip-hop, pop, and her Juno Award-winning tribute to Nina Simone, simply entitled Nina. She possesses a "gorgeous voice that rises to the heavens in rapturous wonder as if in consanguinity with a chorus of angels" according to the Latin Jazz Network. Well-known for her magnitude of work on stage, screen, and studio, Jackie Richardson has been called Canada's reigning queen of jazz, blues, and gospel, who has received a Maple Blues Award for lifetime achievement. She is also a Gemini Award and Dora Award-winning actor who has appeared in numerous musical theatre productions, films, and television series, including the Koerner Hall gala concert performance of Sondheim's Follies during the 2021-22 concert season.

The Conservatory has just announced that Richardson has been named as Honorary Fellow of The Royal Conservatory of Music. The Honorary Fellow is the Conservatory's highest designation and is awarded to those who have had a profound impact on society through their contributions to the arts. Richardson and fellow 2023 honourees - Eugene Levy, one of Canada's most loved and legendary comedic actors, and philanthropists James and Louise Temerty - will receive their designation at The Royal Occasion, the Conservatory's signature fundraising event on Friday, May 12. Mr. Levy, the Temertys, and Ms. Richardson join a distinguished group of RCM Honorary Fellows, including Oscar Peterson, k.d. lang, Leon Fleisher, The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, David Foster, Chantal Kreviazuk, Adrianne Pieczonka, The Tragically Hip, and Lang Lang.

The first Canadian Gold Medalist at the International Chopin Competition, Bruce Liu makes his Koerner Hall recital debut on May 7 with Franz Liszt's Réminiscences de Don Juan and works by Chopin, including Rondo à la mazur in F Major, Ballade No. 2, Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Piano Sonata No. 2, and Trois nouvelles études. Stage seating was recently added for this recital, which has been sold out for months, and a handful of tickets are now available.

George Hinchliffe's Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is a group of all-singing, all-strumming ukulele players whose concerts are a funny, virtuosic, twanging, awesome, foot-stomping obituary of rock-n-roll featuring the "bonsai guitar" and a menagerie of voices. On May 4 and May 5, they perform songs like David Bowie's "Heroes" and the The Who's "Pinball Wizard" like you have never heard them before!

The legend of The Shuffle Demons is well known to Canadians. Beginning in September 1984 with veteran street sax player Demon Richard Underhill pleasing the pedestrian multitudes at the corner of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto, The Shuffle Demons quickly evolved into an immensely popular street band. In 1986, John Gunn and Rob Fresco directed "Spadina Bus," the video that became a MuchMusic hit, and was quickly followed by the hilarious "Out of My House, Roach." On May 6, the band is joined by one of the world's best-known and most-loved DJs, Skratch Bastid, and two-time Juno Award-winning vocalist Caity Gyorgy, called one of Jazz.FM91's "Eight Canadian Women in Jazz You Need to Know."

Curated and conducted by Brian Current, The Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble presents Evta, an unforgettable evening featuring a trio of exceptional and captivating contemporary works as part of the

Discovery Series on May 1. Driving rhythms and complex textures of Magnus Lindberg's Corrente are performed by the outstanding players of the RCM. Next, the audience will be transported to another world with Rebecca Saunders's hauntingly beautiful A Visible Trace, featuring 11 soloists playing remarkably beautiful and ethereal sounds. Finally, violinist Isabella Perron joins the Ensemble in Ana Sokolović's Evta, with its intricate melodies and whimsically beautiful atmosphere.

May concerts at The Royal Conservatory of Music

The Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble

(Discovery Series): Monday, May 1, 2023 at 7:30pm | Temerty Theatre; FREE

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

(Music Mix): Thursday, May 4 & Friday, May 5, 2023 at 8pm | Koerner Hall; from $35

The Shuffle Demons with special guests Skratch Bastid and Caity Gyorgy

(Music Mix): Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 8pm | Koerner Hall; from $35

Bruce Liu (Piano Recitals): Sunday, May 7, 2023 at 3pm | Koerner Hall; limited $115 stage seating

Kellylee Evans and Jackie Richardson

(TD Jazz : The Great Composers): Saturday, May 13, 2023 at 8pm | Koerner Hall; from $45

A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

Friday, May 26, 2023 at 8pm / Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 8pm / Saturday, May 27, 2023 at 3pm

Sunday, May 28, 2023 at 3pm | Koerner Hall; from $65

All concerts take place at The Royal Conservatory of Music

TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, 273 Bloor Street West, Toronto

A limited number of Rush Tickets are available starting 3 hours before all performances presented by The Royal Conservatory. Ticket prices will vary.

Rush Tickets are limited to two tickets per person.

Seat locations are assigned at the discretion of the box office and locations may vary.

Rush Tickets are available by phone only, on a first-come first-served basis.

Tickets and subscriptions are available online at www.rcmusic.com/performance,by calling 416.408.0208, or in person at the Weston Family Box Office.

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