Noteworthy

By Kyle MacMillan

Many guest artists dazzle TSO audiences for a single set of performances before moving on, often not returning for seasons.

But the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s annual Spotlight Artist series, created and curated by Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, fosters deeper collaboration between renowned artists and the orchestra. For audiences, it’s a rare opportunity to experience the soloists’ artistry across multiple programs, see more of them in action, and truly get to know them better.

“The beauty of the Spotlight Artist program is that it allows us to engage with artists in so many ways,” Gimeno said. “It’s not just about playing music. It’s about teaching, leading, and inspiring both the musicians and the community.”

The series continues in 2025/26 with two of the field’s top artists at two very different points in their careers—pianist Bruce Liu and violinist Joshua Bell—each taking part in two concert programs with the orchestra.

Bell, who made his TSO début in May 1988, ranks among classical music’s most recognizable and respected icons. Beginning in his teens, he enjoyed a solo career at the very top of his field. However, he has devoted more time to conducting in recent years, serving as music director of London’s Academy of St Martin in the Fields since 2011.

His conducting prowess will be front and centre on March 26, 28, and 29, 2026, when the violinist serves as both leader and soloist for a program that will include Max Bruch’s beloved Violin Concerto No. 1 and an orchestration of Florence Price’s little-known 1951 organ work, Adoration, for violin and strings.  

For his November 13 and 15, 2025 appearances, he will perform a 1943 violin concerto that he recorded as part of a 2024 release on the Pentatone label. Titled Thomas de Hartmann Rediscovered, the album is a tribute to the Ukrainian composer who enjoyed a successful career in France in the 1930s and 1940s but is now all but forgotten.

Liu, a Canadian pianist who completed his music studies in Montreal, won the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 2021. His career immediately took off, and, a year later, he signed a record deal with the prestigious label Deutsche Grammophon.

“Liu’s energy at the piano is electric,” Gimeno said, “but it’s his incredible sensitivity to the intimate moments in music that makes him such a joy to collaborate with.”

The up-and-comer, who first performed with the TSO in 2022, will present two very different faces of his playing in his two sets of appearances, on October 16–18, 2025, and January 22 and 23, 2026. He will team with Franz Welser-Möst, Music Director of The Cleveland Orchestra, in Mozart’s Classical-era Piano Concerto No. 23, K. 488, and then join Gimeno in dipping into the very heart of Romanticism with Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Both of these top-tier artists can certainly be heard on recordings, but these not-to-miss concerts will give listeners a chance to experience them in a cross-section of repertoire up close, with the kind of immediacy and directness that only live concerts can provide.

“These are artists who bring curiosity, versatility, and passion to everything they do,” Gimeno said. “They have the rare ability to make every performance feel like a new discovery.”

Experience our Spotlight Artists live at Roy Thomson Hall in the 2025/26 season. Don’t miss Bruce Liu’s electrifying Rachmaninoff and Mozart concertos or Joshua Bell’s unforgettable performances of Bruch and de Hartmann. This is classical music at its most unforgettable. Secure your seats today at TSO.CA.