Events:

Tarragon Theatre, “The Real World”: May 2 – June 3, 2012

Tarragon Theatre proudly presents Michel Tremblay’s ground-breaking classic The Real World? in an English translation by John Van Burek and Bill Glassco, which originally premiered at Tarragon almost 25 years ago.

The final show of Tarragon’s 2011-2012 season, The Real World? is directed by the theatre’s Artistic Director Richard Rose and previews from April 24, opens May 2 and closes June 3, 2012 in Tarragon Theatre’s Mainspace. Tickets range from $20-$51 (inclusive of HST) and are available by calling the box office at 416.531.1827 or by visiting www.tarragontheatre.com More »

Mooredale Youth Orchestra, Beethoven’s 5th: June 10, 2012

Anton Kuerti conducts Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

Beethoven’s famed Fifth Symphony conducted by Anton Kuerti highlights the final concert of the Mooredale Youth Orchestra’s 2011-12 season, Sunday, June 10, 3-4:30 p.m. at the Rosedale Heights School of the Arts, 711 Bloor Street East (Castle Frank subway). More »

Art of Time Ensemble, “Sargeant Pepper”: May 31 – June 2

AOT12004_Sgt_Pepper_Email.gifTo mark the 45th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Art of Time Ensemble, under the artistic direction of founder Andrew Burashko, presents the entire album – re-imagined, re-invented and performed by top Canadian artists from the worlds of pop, classical, and jazz. This very special concert runs May 31-June 2 nightly at Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre. More »

Leonardo Galleries, 5 Photographers: Open May 10

5_photographers.jpgFive accomplished and award winning Canadian artists – Peter Adamson, Bret Culp, Peter Kraiker, John Long and Mira Zdjelar – specialize in the art of photography and showcase very different and unique styles. ‘5 Photographers’ (photography and digital art group exhibit) opens with a public reception on Thursday, May 10 (6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) and runs to May 26, 2012 at Leonardo Galleries in Yorkville.

Toronto’s Peter Adamson states, “My current work ranges from the abstract and the interplay of line, shape, form and colour, to the landscape often created with composite images combined for effect. While the subjects are secondary and the aesthetics primary, my ulterior motive is to encourage the viewer to dream of summer.” More »

OCAD University’s 97th Annual Graduate Exhibition: May 3 to 6, 2012

Opening Night: Thursday, May 3, 6:30 to 11 p.m.

The class of 2012 invites you to OCAD University’s 97th annual Graduate Exhibition, featuring work from more than 550 graduating students. The exhibition gets underway with Toronto’s biggest exhibition opening party and cultural industry night — with more than 5000 guests — on Thursday, May 3 from 6:30 to 11 p.m. More »

The Eighth Annual Cooking Fire Theatre Festival: June 20–24, 2012

We are pleased to announce the triumphant return of The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, a week-long performance extravaganza celebrating theatre, food, and public space in Toronto’s Dufferin Grove Park. Each evening throughout June 20–24, acclaimed theatre companies will present original work that promises to delight, entice, and inspire, ranging from an absurdist take on Toronto’s housing market to a visit to a strange and wondrous clock shop. Delicious organic meals will be served to the audience over cooking fires and from Dufferin Grove Park’s two wood-fired outdoor bake ovens. Building on the success of the last seven years, this year’s Cooking Fire Theatre Festival will offer the experience of enchanting and challenging theatre, wonderful food, and the beginning of summer. More »

Alumnae Theatre, Big Ideas 2012: May 2 – 6

Alumnae Theatre’s New Play Development Group has been an incubator for new works by women writers since 2003. Two of their plays so far have premiered on Alumnae’s main stage – Lucy Brennan’s “Daughter of the House” in 2008, and Catherine Frid’s “GuineaPigging” in April 2011. Now for five days in May, audiences can sit in on BIG IDEAS: tabletop readings and staged readings of short plays, long plays, and scenes from full-length plays – a total of 11 new Canadian works from the award-winning writers of Alumnae’s New Play Development group. And admission is free! More »

Coleman Lemieux, From the House of Mirth: May 9 – 13

Lemieux, photo by Paul Antoine TailleferColeman Lemieux & Compagnie (CLC) proudly presents the world premiere of From the House of Mirth, directed and choreographed by James Kudelka from May 9 through May 13 at its new home, The Citadel.

Kudelka turns to America’s Gilded Age and Edith Wharton’s 1905 novel, The House of Mirth, as inspiration for his latest work. From the House of Mirth is a music/dance/theatre collaboration with original score by Rodney Sharman and libretto by Alex Poch-Goldin, featuring both choreography and theatrical direction by Kudelka. More »

Harbourfront Canadian Creative Writers Conference, Tim O’Brien and Joseph Kertes: May 12

Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs Conference: Tim O’Brien and Joseph Kertes
Saturday, May 12, 8:00pm, 2012

The Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs Conference is dedicated to the study and exploration of creative writing pedagogy and the promotion of creative writing in all its forms. The conference includes engaging readings, academic papers, and keynote talks by national and international writers and creative writing teachers, researchers, and students, on all aspects of contemporary creative writing practice. More »

Harbourfront Canadian Creative Writers Conference: Will Ferguson and Priscila Uppal: May 11

Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs Conference: Will Ferguson and Priscila Uppal
Friday, May 11, 8:00pm, 2012

The Canadian Creative Writers and Writing Programs Conference is dedicated to the study and exploration of creative writing pedagogy and the promotion of creative writing in all its forms. The conference includes engaging readings, academic papers, and keynote talks by national and international writers and creative writing teachers, researchers, and students, on all aspects of contemporary creative writing practice. More »

11th annual rock.paper.sistahz festival: May 8 – 10

11th annual rock.paper.sistahz festival of word, sound and performance

WHAT: Play NiCe, 10 plays over 3 nights!
WHEN: May 8 to 10 @ 8PM
WHERE: Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie St. | Ellington’s Café, 805 St. Clair Ave. W.
ADMISSION: Pay-What-U-Can
INFORMATION: 416-533-1500 or visit bcurrent.ca

For full festival schedule and artist bios visit:

http://www.bcurrent.ca/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=138&Itemid=425

More »

Art Battle, Cage Matches: May 1, 2012

Art Battle: Cage Matches
Full Contact Live Competitive Painting

Sometimes it’s a struggle to finish a painting. Cage Matches is live competitive painting with *no rules. Artists take their palettes, brushes and who knows what else into the cage for a series of 1-on-1 matches…the audience will decide who has produced the better painting after a 10 minute round. More »

DanceWorks, BoucharDanse premier: May 3 – 5

bouchard.jpgDanceWorks, Toronto’s longest-running contemporary dance series, presents Toronto’s BoucharDanse in the world premiere of Histoire d’amour, running May 3-5, 2012 at Harbourfront Centre’s Enwave Theatre.

BoucharDanse Artistic Director Sylvie Bouchard commissioned Susie Burpee, Louis-Martin Charest, Denise Fujiwara and collaborated herself with Louis Laberge-Côté to create performance vignettes that look at love throughout the ages – from Ancient Greece through to Modern Times. More »

Michel Bérubé CD Release: May 24, 2012

Michel_B__rub___photo_3.jpgToronto singer Michel Bérubé is releasing his first French language album Hymnes à l’amour, featuring the bonus track, Laisse-moi t’aimer/We’ll be together, a duet with Grammy winner and rock icon Chrissie Hynde. To promote HYMNES À L’AMOUR, Michel will be doing a four-city tour beginning on May 4 in Penetanguishene followed by performances in Waterloo on May 6 and London on May 10 with a final stop at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto on Thursday, May 24.

“An exceptional range and strong, flexible voice” – John Terauds, The Toronto Star

More »

Yuri Bashmet, Mischa Maisky, Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra: May 3, 2012

Mischa_Maisky.jpgThursday, May 3 at Roy Thomson Hall
SHOW ONE PRESENTS GRAMMY-WINNING MOSCOW SOLOISTS IN 20TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR
YURI BASHMET, VIOLA & CONDUCTOR, MISCHA MAISKY’S LONG-AWAITED TORONTO RETURN AS SOLOIST

The Moscow Soloists perform Schubert’s Quartet in D minor (Death and the Maiden), as arranged by Mahler; and Brahms’ Quintet in B minor for Viola and Strings, arranged for small orchestra, with Maestro Bashmet as soloist. With Mischa Maisky as solo cellist, the orchestra performs Haydn’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in C and Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne in D minor for Cello and Orchestra.

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Upper Canada Choristers, Fauré Requiem: May 4

Upper_Canada_Choristers_w_conductor_Laurie_Evan_Fraser.jpgThe transcendent Fauré Requiem and the Canadian premiere of Missa sine nomine by contemporary Venezuelan composer César Alejandro Carrillo highlight Sanctus, the spring concert by the Upper Canada Choristers. Founder and Artistic Director Laurie Evan Fraser conducts the 45-voice choir of men and women, Friday, May 4, 8 p.m. at Grace Church on-the-Hill, 300 Lonsdale Road.

Special guests are baritone Mark Ruhnke, organist Christopher Dawes, and choirs from the Swansea Public School. More »

Oh So Beautiful: May 12, 2012

BLUEBLACKmusic presents…

Oh So Beautifuloh_so_beautiful.jpg

Putting the power of performance back into the hands of the musicians.

Through Oh So Beautiful™, BLUEBLACKmusic™ has created a platform for Toronto’s independent musicians to work together, not in competition, to promote each other and ultimately create greater opportunities for themselves.

Music is one of the world’s oldest professions and we should never expect musicians to work for nothing or just do it for the love. More »

Ink on Paper Dance Company, “Nightbird”: April 26-28

Dancers: Matt Montgomery & Irene Whittaker-Cumming/Photo: Scott McLeodNightbird is an evocative and elegant full-length contemporary dance work that likens the human mind to a dusty old attic, as expressed by five writers at their typewriters: Colette, Virginia Woolf, Vita Sackville-West, Simone de Beauvoir and Sylvia Plath.  More »

Authors at Harbourfront Centre: May 2, 2012

AUTHORS: Marianne Apostolides, Deni Y. Béchard, Steven Heighton
Wednesday, May 2, 7:30pm, 2012, Harbourfront Centre, 235 Queens Quay West
Marianne Apostolides presents Voluptuous Pleasure, a collection of non-fiction stories that push the limits of the genre.

Deni Y. Béchard shares Cures for Hunger, a gripping memoir.

Steven Heighton reads from The Dead Are More Visible, a collection of short stories.
Tickets: $10/FREE for members, students, & youth under 25.
Box Office/Info: 416 973 400/ readings.org

Art Battle Doubles: April 24, 2012

art_battle.jpgWe are pleased to announced our first ever team event! 12 teams will compete at Art Battle Doubles, 2 painters per team. This tournament will have 3 rounds including a final Championship round. The winning team will receive cash prize and qualify for the Art Battle Tournament of Champions this summer.

What is Art Battle?
Art Battle is live competitive painting. Painters create the best work they can in 20 minutes. As they work, patrons move around the easels, closely watching the creative process. At the end of the round, the audience votes democratically for their favourite painting and bids in silent auction to take the work home. More »