With fewer and fewer reviewers covering an ever greater number of performances for Toronto publications, and with the growth of online reviews, a conversation has begun on Facebook and blogs, among patrons, musicians, reviewers and arts workers. Who is listening to our music? Whose reviews should we heed? Who should review music? What can we learn from reviewers who are not steeped in the concert-hall tradition?

To learn how “new ears” experience the TMC’s concerts, we launched The New Ears Review Project in November 2014. At each TMC concert, a brand new audience member will review the concert and tell us about their experience. We will post the reviews here, link via social media, and share them with our community.

Toronto rap-legend and writer the Mighty Rhino contributed the first New Ears review of Mozart & Haydn. Our second New Ears review, of the Festival of Carols, comes from local writer and researcher N. Craig.

To write for the New Ears project, you must be:

• Willing and able to attend a TMC concert;
• Willing and able to submit a review of between 500 and 1000 words within a week of the concert; and
• Not a previous attendee of any TMC concerts. In fact, the less exposure you’ve had to performances of symphonic choirs, the better for our purposes.

If you wish to volunteer to write for the New Ears project, please send us an introductory e-mail, stating who you are, which concert you would like to review, and how you heard about the project.