R. Strauss’s Don Quixote

Performances fuelled by the fantastical and formidable await when Richard Strauss’s masterful musical narration of Don Quixote takes the stage, with Toronto Symphony Orchestra principals Joseph Johnson (cello) and Michael Casimir (viola) performing the roles of the knight errant and his faithful servant. The imaginative tone poem, inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’s 1605 novel, has captured the hearts of audiences since its creation. Wagner’s noble Prelude to Act I of Parsifal, his last opera, continues the literary theme with the tale of a young innocent and his challenges as a guardian of the legendary Holy Grail. Lontano by György Ligeti is a haunting soundscape used in the films The Shining and Shutter Island with psychologically terrifying effect. Finally, we realize a treasure in the North American Première of the Trombone Concerto by Canada’s own Samy Moussa, co-commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and performed by the mesmerizing Jörgen van Rijen making his TSO début.