What are they up to?

As we’re preparing for our upcoming season to start, we thought we’d share what some of our guest artists are up to this summer!

Carissa Klopoushak

Ironwood Quartet

Before getting back to the swing of things playing in the National Arts Centre Orchestra and preparing for her November performance with the SSO, Carissa has been working with her team at Ironwood Quartet.  The quartet has just recently wrapped up some performances at summer festivals, including their own!  They are at the helm of the Classical Unbound Festival where the serve as artists-in-residence – the festival’s goal is to  unbind so-called ‘classical’ music from its formal attire and bind it more closely to our hearts and souls.

Carissa’s creative juice never takes a summer break though – we know she’s already working with her colleagues at Ritornello to plan next year’s festival.  This November she returns to the SSO to perform a truly stunning work, Vivian Fung’s Violin Concerto No 1, as part of this season’s Homecoming concert!

 

 

Danika Lorèn

Original art by Loren for Crumb’s Apparition

After finishing a refreshing run in Saskatoon Opera’s Die Fledermaus, Danika headed back to Toronto to prepare for some new performances with her group Collectif.  The group strives to create new experiences for audiences through multi-discipline adventures in art song.  This summer they’re performing as part of Toronto Summer Music and Wellington Water Week.  They re-think the concert experience, creating films and animations, and doing it all themselves!

Their new cabaret for Wellington Water Week, called Watering Hole, has classical music getting a dash of comedic irreverence in a casual atmosphere.  With tons on her plate over the next few months, it’s exciting to have Danika returning to the SSO to sing Handel’s Messiah – its one of the most anticipated performances this season!

 

Ryan Cole

Victoria Symphony Splash

It seems like all good musicians Ryan is spending his summer with his instrument!  As the Principal Trumpet of the Victoria Symphony, he’s prepping for Splash! It’s the big highlight of their summer season – in true island fashion, the orchestra plays from a barge in the Victoria inner harbour to over 40,000 people gathered on the lawns of the legislature and the Empress hotel (and even all around them in kayaks!). It really is a special concert in Victoria.

Between all the concerts and teaching summer session at the Victoria Conservatory of Music, he’s going to make a trip home to enjoy some of this stellar Saskatoon summer.  This November Ryan makes his SSO solo debut performing a new concerto written just for him, Marcus Goddard’s Trumpet Concerto.  We’re thrilled to showcase this special musical moment.

And if you follow him on social media, you already know he’s practicing!

 

 

Spencer McKnight

Cast of Don Giovanni

Opera, apperol spritz, and pasta…ahead of coming home to begin work on new rep for the upcoming season, including a number of debuts, Spencer is in Italy singing his heart out.  He just recently completed a run of the role of Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Vicenza, and is taking time to be a tourist for a bit before he says arrivederci Roma!

Spencer is stepping on to the TCU Place stage with the SSO next spring with the North American debut of Materna Requiem by Rebecca Dale.  The work features an unusual setting of the requiem’s Pie Jesu – normally sung by a female or child, Dale’s Requiem places the piece into the voice of a tenor to highlight a father’s love for his new born son.

In the year ahead he’s making a number of special appearances as well as solo recitals, including performances of his new recital Songs of the Isles in spring 2020.

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