So far so good.

I knew I was going to like this concert because they were playing pieces I liked. I did not expect this to be the best concert of the season. As we go into the month of May the orchestra is hitting its stride.

Serendipity leads me to share a sentence from a colleague, namely Erin Guinup who wrote a piece for the Seattle Times titled “What an Overwhelmed Society Needs from the Arts.” Amazing that the Toronto Symphony, working with CAMH (Centre for Addiction & Mental Health), should have premiered a work tonight that seems to speak to this subject. Erin spoke of “organizations willing to ask not just “how do we fill seats” but “what does an overwhelmed person actually need tonight, and how do we deliver it.“

I feel so proud that here in Toronto we heard a bit of an answer to Erin’s question, and maybe that’s more than serendipity. My heart was full watching and listening to the performance, the World Première/Art of Healing Program Commission in Partnership with CAMH from Cris Derksen, a piece titled “STILL HERE” created in consultation with members of the TSO and patients at CAMH, offering their input to Cris.

Mark Williams, CEO of the TSO, and Lori Sidorchuk from CAMH came out to introduce Cris’s piece, explaining its genesis.

Here’s Cris’s program note, which isn’t terribly long.

STILL HERE is a piece created in partnership with the TSO x CAMH Art of Healing project. It is a piece about humanity, living in cities, being surrounded and feeling alone, finding the magic in the mundane, getting excited about getting somewhere, feeling the empathy of humanity, the rhythm of the streets, pausing the chaos to listen to the sounds of our urban birds cousins, remembering where we came from, and that stunning phenomenon of a sunset called the Torontohenge: where the setting sun aligns with the east-west streets of downtown Toronto to create a unifying beam of hope and light across the grid of the city streets.

I think of the fifteen-minute long piece as a tone poem. If we recall that Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote includes sounds of wind & imitations of animals, we’re in similar creative territory, except the landscape Cris is painting is downtown Toronto, with birds, sirens, indigenous voices and the beat of urban life. This beautiful piece offers a peaceful answer to the questions we have, sometimes pulsing with rhythm, sometimes gently melodic & tonal, truly a piece about humanity.

The premiere was conducted with the firm leadership of Elim Chan.

I knew I liked Elim from her handling of the national anthem. I always sing it in French because to be honest I don’t know the English words anymore, because they’ve been changed so many times. Elim made the piece quite beautiful, building to a climax in the last part of the song.

In addition to the anthem & STILL HERE there were also a couple of huge works on the program, namely Rachmaninoff’s 3rd piano concerto and Shostakovich’s 9th symphony.

The concerto, often identified as the most difficult piano concerto in the repertoire was played by pianist Lukáš Vondráček before intermission, in a performance that I have to recommend to anyone who admires piano music, who loves Rachmaninoff, or who might simply want to be shown something. Do yourself a favour and go to Roy Thomson Hall Friday night for the repeat of this program.

Other performers may clutter the sound with the pedal, but this was the cleanest version I ever heard, every note distinct and clear. Indeed at times I could him putting the pedal down, articulating the music with his rapid use of the pedal.

And at times we were going as fast or faster than any version I ever heard. Elim kept the orchestra out of the way, the piano soaring easily for the first two movements, the first movement especially subtle. It was only at the beginning of the finale that we heard a more powerful sound from the orchestra, and Lukáš matched them, in a volcanic eruption of sound & passion. I’ve heard this concerto a few times, and this was a unique reading.

For his encore I believe we heard a Chopin nocturne in C-sharp minor, thoughtfully played.

After intermission came first Cris Derksen’s tone poem, then Shostakovich’s 9th symphony. In a concert that seemed to go from highlight to highlight, from a brilliant piano concerto to a beautiful premiere, it was startling to discover that the orchestra had something in reserve, this stunning reading of a piece of music I think of as weird & wacky, full of irony & unexpected twists & turns. There are passages that are laugh out loud funny, and no this isn’t me being a nerdy academic. When I met some old friends in the lobby afterwards, we talked about how much fun we had at this concert, especially with the amazing symphony to finish. I’d be hard pressed to identify the most remarkable solo, between piccolo, bassoon, flute, the trombone section aided by the tuba, Jonathan Crow playing something decidedly funky as comical concertmaster, and the playful percussion.

Elim has a wonderfully clear beat. While she’s diminutive especially when she stands beside Jonathan, her command of the baton is second to none: and the TSO responded. The chemistry I felt between the players and the leader was a joy to behold. I hope that Mark & the TSO team will bring her back again, she’s a remarkable conductor.

The program is repeated Friday night at Roy Thomson Hall. See it if you can!