Viva Violins: Bach, Arnold, Tchaikovsky May 4, 2024

Sinfonia Toronto will round out their 25th Anniversary season on May 4 in George Weston Recital Hall with a far-ranging program. Music Director Nurhan Arman will lead the orchestra in a program stretching from a Baroque favourite by Johann Sebastien Bach to the world premiere of a new work composed especially for the anniversary season.

Two brilliant guest artists, violinists Christos Galileas and Jannis Georgiadis, will weave competing and cooperating lines through Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in D minor. From 1717 when Bach composed this famous work, the orchestra will jump to the present, giving the premiere of Stanley Grill’s Artemis, Her Silver Bow.  Grill attributes his title and inspiration to a stream of associations: “a silver anniversary.. Yeats’ famous line, ‘golden apples of the sun, silver apples of the moon’… Artemis, goddess of the moon, who carries a silver bow, shooting silver arrows. As I composed the music…the twang of her bow string turned into music.”

The Romantic era will provide overflowing melodies for the concert’s finale, in one of the most beloved pieces ever written for string orchestra, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade, written in tribute to the serenades of Mozart, his own favourite composer.

Violinist Christos Galileas made his public debut at 16 with the Thessaloniki Symphony in Paganini’s Violin Concerto No 1. He graduated from the Athens Conservatory and obtained his bachelor’s from Oberlin, a master’s at Juilliard School and a doctorate in Violin Performance from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has performed with eminent artists including the Borodin Quartet and Mischa Maisky, nine international festivals, and orchestras including the Berlin Symphony. He has appeared as soloist at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, the Musikverein and Vienna Konzerthaus, Rudolfinum in Prague, Bucharest Athenaeum the Athens and Thessaloniki Megarons and many others. Dr. Galileas has been invited to teach at Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin, Indiana University, eight other US universities, and the Thessaloniki and Athens Conservatories. He records for the Albany Records label and plays a Joseph Guarneri violin made in 1705.

Violinist Jannis Georgiadis studied at the Athens Conservatory, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, and the Vienna University of Music. A recitalist and soloist in international demand, Jannis has performed as soloist with orchestras such as the London Philharmonia, Berlin Symphony , the Budapest Philharmonic, Prague Radio Symphony, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, Monterey Symphony, Jeju Symphony and Athens and Salonika State Orchestras. He has performed in the Vienna Musikverein, Carnegie Hall, Palais de Congres et de la Musique, Linzer Brucknerhaus and the Athens Megaron and collaborated with many distinguished artists and conductors. He plays a Francesco Gobetti violin made in 1721.

Nurhan Arman has conducted in 24 countries in Europe, Asia, South America, Canada, and the US, returning regularly to many orchestras in Europe. He concluded a busy 2022-23 season with concerts in Montreal, Greece, the Republic of Georgia and Italian orchestras in Friuli and Tuscany and will open his 2023-24 season with a fourth return to the Arpeggione Chamber Orchestra in Austria and an engagement in Italy.

Sinfonia Toronto has toured twice in Europe, in the US, South America and China, receiving glowing reviews. It has released six CD’s, including a JUNO Award winner. The orchestra plays annually in Barrie and performs in many other Ontario cities. Its extensive repertoire includes all the major string orchestra works of the 18th through 21st centuries, and it has premiered many new works.

George Weston Recital Hall in the Meridian Arts Centre.