
Photo: Bruce Zinger
Since its founding in 1972, The Toronto Consort has become internationally recognized for its excellence in the performance of medieval, renaissance and early baroque music. Led by a collective of Artistic Associates, the group’s members are amongst Canada’s leading early music specialists, including both singers and instrumentalists on early plucked and bowed strings, flutes, keyboards, and percussion.
The Toronto Consort specializes in rarely heard repertoire from roughly 1100 AD to 1650 AD, frequently presented in collaboration with other artists, such as actors, dancers, visual and multi-media artists, and guest specialists. The collaborative nature of its creative process has led to diverse productions enthusiastically received by varied modern audiences, from dedicated music-history aficionados to occasional or first-time patrons.
Each year, the Consort presents a five-production, twelve-concert series in the beautiful acoustic of Jeanne Lamon Hall at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, located in downtown Toronto’s Bloor Street Cultural Corridor. The Consort also tours regularly outside the Greater Toronto Area, having been to Europe and Great Britain, frequently across Canada, and into the United States.
The Toronto Consort also offers free audience-engagement activities, such as pre-concert lectures, high school education concerts and learning workshops, the Early Music Collaboration Lab for Seniors and Youth, and runs development programs for Emerging Artists and Board of Directors Training.
Discography
Music for Early Instruments. 1974. CBC SM 229
To Syngen and to Pleye. 1976. BER 9020
La Chanson Française: Songs of Medieval and Renaissance France. 1983. COL 8303
Nowell Sing We: A Renaissance Christmas Anthology. 1984. COLK 8304 and SRI 002
Full Well She Sang: Women’s Music from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. 1993. SRI 005
Orlando di Lasso: Chansons and Madrigals. 1994. DIS 80149
The Sweet Hereafter (including music by Mychael Danna). 1997. V2IM 44955
O Lusty May: Renaissance Songs of Spring. 1999. DOR 93172
The Little Barley-Corne: Winter Revels from the Renaissance (with violinist David Greenberg). 1999. DOR 93186
The Way of the Pilgrim: Medieval Songs of Travel. 2000. DOR 93214
Mariners and Milkmaids (with violinist David Greenberg). 2002. DOR 93247
Praetorius Christmas Vespers. 2004. MAR 335
The DaVinci Collection: Italian Music from the Time of Leonardo. 2006. MAR 357
The Queen: Music for Elizabeth I. 2008. MAR 387
Navidad: Christmas Music from Latin America and Spain. 2012. MAR 435
All in a Garden Green: A Renaissance Collection. 2012. MAR 515
Re-release of The Little Barley-Corne. 2014. MAR 457
The Italian Queen of France, 2017. MAR 81481