Orchestra Toronto Presents

Into the Light: Prokofiev, Beethoven, R. Strauss

Date & Time

Saturday, October 18, 2025 at 8PM
Pre-Concert Chat at 7:15PM

Venue
The George Weston Recital Hall at the Meridian Arts Centre, 5040 Yonge St.

Michael Newnham, Conductor

Orchestra Toronto opens its 2025/26 season with a program tracing a dramatic arc from struggle to transcendence. Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, originally written for his only opera Fidelio, captures the emotional tension and ultimate triumph of freedom over oppression. Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1, performed by acclaimed Canadian violinist (and Orchestra Toronto’s concertmaster!) Corey Gemmell, offers a striking contrast - dreamlike, lyrical, and unexpectedly delicate in its early 20th-century modernism. Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration) concludes the program, a sweeping tone poem that follows an artist’s final journey from mortality to metaphysical release.

    • Canadian work, tbd

    • Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 1

    • Beethoven: Leonore Overture No. 3

    • Strauss: Tod und Verklärung (Death and Transfiguration)

    • Corey Gemmell, Violin

Corey Gemmell
CONCERTMASTER

Listeners can revel in Mr. Gemmell’s virtuosity in recordings, such as the Mozart Effect, and works with Ensemble Vivant. His collaboration for the Royal Conservatory of Music’s syllabus on compact discs stands as a testament to his calibre. His repertoire extends to compositions by greats like Mozart, Brahms, and Ravel.