The TMC celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2019 with a gala concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra at Koerner Hall. The Choir was founded in 1894 by conductor Augustus Vogt and had its first concert on January 15, 1895 in Massey Hall. The Choir has performed in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, as Toronto went from a city of 200,000 to the Greater Toronto Area of over 6 million. A lot has changed over the years, but the Choir continues to hold annual auditions for all choir members, a practice started by founder Augustus Vogt.The Gala Concert will take place Sunday, October 20, 2019 at 3:30 pm at Koerner Hall. The Choir will be joined by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, long-time musical partners with the TMC and a youngster at only 97 years old. TMC Conductor David Fallis has put together a program that brings together the three centuries in three major works: Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, composed in the late 1880s and re-orchestrated by him in 1894, the year of the founding of the TMC; Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, composed in 1930 and one of the greatest choral-orchestral works of the 20th century; and for the 21st century a new commission by acclaimed Cree composer Andrew Balfour. Andrew’s commission for the TMC will set one of the Biblical psalms in Cree, interwoven with words by Indigenous poet Karen Vermette.
