James Ehnes Plays Barber

One of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s 2023/24 Spotlight Artists, GRAMMY® Award–winning violinist James Ehnes headlines a spirited program celebrating two monumental 20th-century American works. Both Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto and Leonard Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story rely upon lush melodies, passages of tender lyricism, and percussive interludes. The performance also features The Prairies by composer Karen Sunabacka, inspired by nature and her Métis heritage; Ehnes’s take on the virtuosic third movement of French-Cuban composer José White Lafitte’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor (a rarely used key); and the Afro-Caribbean rhythms of Sensemayá by Mexico’s Silvestre Revueltas.