Encounters: Arvo Pärt: Words & Music

The Soundstreams TD Encounters series aims to bring people together through music and discussion to explore themes that resonate in their communities. New Canadian music stimulates and provokes ‘cultural conversations’, music with underlying themes that resonate with our time and place.

Arvo Pärt: Words & Music is a companion event to Soundstreams’ mainstage concert. Presented in partnership with Estonian Museum Canada / VEMU and Estonian Music Week, this free TD Encounters event takes place on January 29th at 7:30 p.m. at the Tartu College Event Space (3 Madison Ave, Toronto ON).

This event will explore the intersection of words and music from the perspective of both composer and author, with a specific focus on the unique way that Arvo Pärt, known as the most performed living composer in the world, sets text within his works. Discussion will be led by composer Omar Daniel and author Anne Michaels, who have previously collaborated on The Passion of Lavinia Andronicus. Musical presentations will include a live performance of selected works by Arvo Pärt and recorded excerpts of Omar Daniel’s works. This event will include performers Daniel Cabena (counter tenor), and Hyejin Kwon (pianist).

For accessible seating requirements, please contact us directly at [email protected].

Encounters: Arvo Pärt: Words & Music is generously supported by TD Bank Group through the TD Ready Commitment.

Dan Cabena, Counter Tenor

Daniel Cabena sings, plays, writes, and teaches. He is also a curator of texts and music; and with Luke Hathaway he shares the artistic direction of ANIMA Early Music. Together they program concerts, commission new works of text and music, and create new works for the ear and for the stage.

To his work of curation and creation, Daniel brings a background in early music and liturgical music scholarship; an interest in how music functions in different performance contexts and traditions; and a curiosity about the ‘why’ of music, as well as its ‘how’.

Omar Daniel, Panelist

Omar was born in Toronto and raised in Don Mills, one of the first designed suburbs in North America. Although his Estonian refugee parents were not professional musicians, his mother managed to buy a Heintzman upright grand and have it moved to a small room on the second floor of their family home where Omar attempted to read through piano reductions of Tchaikovsky’s ballet music. That became his first musical influence. As time went on he became periodically obsessed with all the great composers, but the music of Beethoven, Bartók and Ligeti were, and continue to be, steadfast musical inspirations.

He has composed extensively in solo, chamber, vocal, electronic and orchestral idioms. He is also an active pedagogue and holds the position of Associate Professor in Composition at Western University. Omar’s music is characterized by a strong sense of drama: his style is firmly rooted in the European concert-music tradition and exhibits a broad palette of instrumental colour, intricate harmonic language, a strong rhythmic profile and rigorous architectural design.

Hyejin Kwon, Pianist/Keyboardist

Pianist and co-founder of Muse9 Production, Korean-Canadian pianist Hyejin Kwon hails from Seoul, South Korea. She made her public debut at the Korean National Arts Center Concert Hall at age 7 and made her orchestral debut with Seoul Philharmonic at age 10. Hyejin moved to the United States at 15 to further her musical training and she has been based in Toronto, Canada since 2012, working actively as a prominent and renowned collaborative pianist, répétiteur, and vocal coach. Hyejin received her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and an Artistic Diploma from the University of Toronto Opera. She is also a graduate of the renowned Canadian Opera Company’s ensemble studio. In addition to her busy professional career, Hyejin is currently working on her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in collaborative piano at the University of Toronto under the tutelage of Steven Philcox.

Anne Michaels, Panelist

Anne Michaels is a novelist and poet. Her books are translated into more than forty-five languages and have won dozens of international awards, including the Orange Prize (now the Women’s Prize for Fiction), the Guardian Fiction Prize, and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. From 2015-2019 she served as Toronto’s Poet Laureate. Her novel Fugitive Pieces was adapted as a feature film and, in 2020, was chosen as one of BBC’s 100 Novels that Shaped the World. Her new, critically acclaimed and bestselling novel, is Held.