Jukka-Pekka Saraste has established himself as one of the outstanding conductors of his generation, demonstrating remarkable musical depth and integrity. Born in Heinola, Finland, he began his career as a violinist before training as a conductor with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. An artist of exceptional versatility and breadth, and renowned for his objective approach, he feels a special affinity with the sound and style of late Romantic music. He maintains a particularly strong connection to the works of Bruckner, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and Sibelius, and is internationally celebrated for his interpretations of Mahler.

Since September 2023, Saraste has been Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2010 to 2019, he served as Chief Conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. From 2006 to 2013, Saraste was Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic, where he is now Conductor Laureate. He founded the Finnish Chamber Orchestra, where he remains the Artistic Advisor.

Saraste’s guest engagements have led him to major orchestras worldwide, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, and leading Scandinavian orchestras. In North America, he has conducted The Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and New York Philharmonic, among others. In recent years, Saraste has developed a strong profile in opera and had great success at Theater an der Wien with a new production of Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Korngold’s Die tote Stadt at the Finnish National Opera. At the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, he conducted a new staging of Reimann’s Lear.

Mentoring young musicians at the beginning of their careers is of great importance to Saraste. He is a founding member of the LEAD! Foundation, providing mentorship programs for young conductors and orchestra leaders. In 2020, he created the annual Fiskars Summer Festival, for the purpose of supporting the next generation of young musicians.

Saraste’s extensive discography includes the complete symphonies of Sibelius and Nielsen with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. His CDs with WDR Symphony Orchestra for Hänssler have likewise earned him much critical praise. They include Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande, Stravinsky’s Le Rossignol, Brahms’s complete symphonies, Mahler’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8. The complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies can be regarded as a legacy of his tenure in Cologne.

Saraste has received the Pro Finlandia Medal, the Sibelius Medal, the Finnish State Prize for Music, and, most recently, the insignia of Commander of the Order of the Lion of Finland.

Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill is one of the most renowned singers of her generation. Winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award, Cargill has gone on to be nominated for a GRAMMY® Award for Best Opera Recording as part of The Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Dialogues des Carmélites. In July 2018, Cargill was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Cargill’s operatic roles include Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, Judith in Bluebeard’s Castle, Mère Marie in Dialogues des Carmélites, Dryade in Ariade auf Naxos, Dido in Dido and Aeneas, and Anna in Les Troyens. Famed for her interpretation of Wagner, Cargill regularly sings Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Fricka in Das Rheingold, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, and Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

The 2023/24 season saw Cargill return to Glyndebourne as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde conducted by Robin Ticciati, and sing Judith in concert performances of Bluebeard’s Castle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karina Canellakis, and Fricka in Die Walküre in a concert tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. 

Cargill enjoys long-standing relationships with several conductors, and her 2023/24 appearances included collaborations with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in her return to The Metropolitan Opera for the Verdi Requiem, Alma Mahler lieder with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 with the Orchestre Métropolitain, and Fricka in Die Walküre in a concert tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. With Robin Ticciati and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Cargill sang Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Act II of Tristan und Isolde, Das Lied von der Erde, which she also performed with the Wiener Symphoniker. Elsewhere, Cargill sang Mahler Symphony No. 2 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Esa-Pekka Salonen, and with Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal under Patrick Hahn.

With her recital partner, Simon Lepper, Cargill has performed at London’s Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Washington’s Kennedy Center, and New York’s Carnegie Hall, and regularly gives recitals for BBC Radio 3. With Lepper, Cargill also recently recorded a critically acclaimed recital of lieder by Alma and Gustav Mahler for Linn Records, for whom she has previously recorded Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and La mort de Cléopâtre with Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.

Cargill is Patron of the National Girls Choir of Scotland and sang in the National Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication for King Charles III following his coronation in 2023.

Internationally lauded, Quebec-born tenor Frédéric Antoun’s voice has been described as “noble and sincere...the quality of his phrasing, his use of chiaroscuro and his radiant high notes…equal to any heard on international stages today” (Opera Canada). Antoun has long been associated with the operas of Thomas Adès, and his 2023/24 performances included the British composer’s The Exterminating Angel at Opéra national de Paris and his signature role of Caliban in The Tempest at Wiener Staatsoper. He also reprised Don Ottavio in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at the Savonlinna Opera Festival.

In 2022/23, he sang Caliban in The Tempest at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, Gérald in Lakmé and Don José in Carmen at Paris’s Opéra-Comique, Narraboth in Salome at the Canadian Opera Company, and Mozart’s Requiem at Berlin’s Konzerthaus. 

Other recent appearances include Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Thespis in Platée, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, and François in Bernstein’s A Quiet Place (Opéra national de Paris), Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni (Royal Opera House), Tonio in La fille du régiment (Opéra de Lausanne, Opéra de Toulon, and Royal Opera House), Raúl in multiple premières of The Exterminating Angel (Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, and Salzburg Festival), Pylade in Iphigénie en Tauride and Nadir in Les pêcheurs de perles (Opernhaus Zürich), Prince Charmant in Cendrillon (Brussels’s La Monnaie), and Laërte in Hamlet (Theater an der Wien). He regularly works with esteemed stage directors, including Calixto Bieito, Robert Carsen, Atom Egoyan, Olivier Py, Laurent Pelly, Amy Lane, Robert Lepage, and Barrie Kosky.

No stranger to Canadian stages, Antoun has sung Fenton (Falstaff), Tamino (The Magic Flute), and Chevalier de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites) for the Canadian Opera Company, and Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor) at Opéra de Montréal.

Antoun is an accomplished concert artist whose repertoire includes Handel’s Messiah, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ and Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mozart’s Requiem, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and Bach’s Magnificat, St. Matthew Passion, and St. John Passion. He has been engaged by the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, London Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Shanghai Symphony, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, and Orchestre de Paris.

Antoun has notably worked with conductors Bertrand de Billy, Johannes Debus, Gustavo Dudamel, Emmanuelle Haïm, Philippe Jordan, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Antonio Pappano, Jérémie Rhorer, Carlo Rizzi, and François-Xavier Roth.

Hailed as an artist “alight with the spirit of the music” (The Boston Globe), three-time GRAMMY®-winning bass-baritone Dashon Burton has established a vibrant career appearing regularly throughout the US and Europe. 

His exciting 2024/25 season begins with Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic led by Gustavo Dudamel at the Hollywood Bowl. Highlights throughout the season include returns to the Milwaukee Symphony, for the second year as Artist-in-Residence, for Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Bach’s Ich habe genug, both led by Ken-David Masur; his Boston Symphony subscription début with Michael Tilson Thomas’s Whitman Songs led by Teddy Abrams; his Toronto Symphony début in the Mozart Requiem led by Jukka-Pekka Saraste; Detlev Glanert’s Four Preludes and Serious Songs, and the Mozart Requiem with the St. Louis Symphony led by Stéphane Denève; the Mozart Requiem with the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Søndergård; and Handel’s Messiah with the National Symphony led by Masaaki Suzuki.

Burton’s 2023/24 season included multiple appearances with Michael Tilson Thomas, including a performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the San Francisco Symphony and Copland’s Old American Songs with the New World Symphony. Burton also performed Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with the Washington Bach Consort, Handel’s Messiah with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the title role in Sweeney Todd at Vanderbilt University. With The Cleveland Orchestra, Burton sang in a semi-staged version of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and he joined the Milwaukee Symphony and Ken-David Masur for three subscription weeks as their Artist-in-Residence.

A multi-award-winning singer, Burton won his second GRAMMY® in March 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album for his performance in Smyth’s The Prison with the Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). As an original member of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, he won his first GRAMMY® in 2013 for their inaugural recording of new commissions, and his third in 2024 for their most recent recording, Rough Magic, featuring more new commissions from Caroline Shaw, William Brittelle, Peter Shin, and Eve Beglarian.

His other recordings include Songs of Struggle & Redemption: We Shall Overcome (Acis), the GRAMMY®-nominated recording of Paul Moravec’s Sanctuary Road (Naxos); Holocaust 1944 by Lori Laitman (Acis); and Caroline Shaw’s The Listeners with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra. His album of spirituals garnered high praise and was singled out by The New York Times as “profoundly moving…a beautiful and lovable disc.”

Burton received a Bachelor of Music degree from Oberlin College and Conservatory, and a Master of Music degree from Yale University’s Institute of Sacred Music. He is an Assistant Professor of voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

The TMChoir is proud to be one of Canada’s oldest, largest, and best-known choral organizations. The choir presented its first concert on January 15, 1895, as part of Massey Hall’s inaugural season, and has been a leader in choral music in Canada ever since, commissioning works by Canadian composers, and presenting world and Canadian premières. The choir also regularly performs and records with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. In May 2021, Jean-Sébastien Vallée was named as Artistic Director, only the eighth conductor in TMChoir’s 128-year history.

Through its performances, educational programs, and community engagement, TMChoir aspires to introduce its audiences to choral masterworks from the past and present—making both renowned and lesser-known pieces available, accessible, and inspirational to all.

The TMChoir includes 24 professional singers and more than 130 auditioned and experienced volunteer choristers. Auditions are held in the spring and fall to welcome new members. Our smaller professional ensemble, the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers (TMSingers), was created to deliver more intimate, nimble repertoire in a variety of non-traditional venues, traversing the line between concert and experience, and showcasing the individual expression of professional soloists.

Named as Artistic Director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (TMChoir) in May 2021 following an international search, Jean-Sébastien Vallée is a renowned Canadian-American conductor, scholar, and pedagogue known for his expertise in vocal, choral, and orchestral repertoires. With a career spanning over several decades, Vallée has conducted numerous ensembles across North America, Europe, and Asia, and has prepared choruses for some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including the Chicago and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. In addition to his artistic leadership of the TMChoir, he is Associate Professor of Music, Director of Choral Studies, and Coordinator of the Ensembles & Conducting Area at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. His recent engagements included concerts at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest and with l’Orchestre symphonique de Québec.