2017-2018 Season

Wednesday, September 27th, 2017 @ 7PM (Dakota Tavern, 249 Ossington Ave)  

STAR WARS

Presented by ClassyAF, the Blythwood Winds are again blasting off to a galaxy far, far away to perform an epic suite of music from the flick that started it all, Star Wars Episode IV: A NEW HOPE. Arranged for wind quintet by our very own horn player, Curtis Vander Hyden, this music will transport you through John Williams' fantastic score that shaped the entire genre.

Sunday, December 10th, 2017 @ 2pm (McMichael Gallery, 10365 Islington Ave, Kleinburg, ON)

Wednesday, January 24th, 2018 @ 8PM (FREE TIMES CAFE, 320 COLLEGE ST)

BLYTHWOOD STRIKES BACK

Our fabulous horn player, Curtis Vander Hyden has been busy preparing the next episode of John Williams' epic space opera film score, arranging music from everyone's beloved dark chapter, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back. Hear the music from the wintry Battle of Hoth, the unrelenting Imperial March, journey to the Dagobah system with Yoda's theme, experience the wrenching asteroid field chase, Han and Leia's sweeping love theme and much more! We'll also perform new Simpsons medley arranged by our bassoonist, Kevin Harris. Fun for everyone in Free Times Cafe's casual music venue.

Admission: Pay-What-You-Can.

Friday, March 2nd, 2018 @ 1pm, Canadian Music Centre - Toronto (20 Saint Joseph St)

FORECASTING THE CANADIAN WIND - TORONTO WORKSHOP WITH DANIEL JANKE

As part of Wind Quintet International's project, Our Canada: Forecasting the Canadian Wind, Blythwood Winds first workshop with composer Daniel Janke hosted by the Canadian Music Centre in Toronto.

Watch the archived live stream here:
http://windquintet.international/event/forecasting-the-canadian-wind-workshop-toronto-on/

Free Admission
 

Wednesday, March 21st, 2018 @ 8pm (Heliconian Hall, 35 Hazelton AVE)

WINTER WINDS

Each year Blythwood Winds works to promote, create, and perform contemporary Canadian repertoire by living composers. This March, we return to Toronto's Heliconian Hall for the third year in a row for a concert of new Canadian music for wind quintet. The program will feature Paul Suchan's Winter Music (2013), Jordan Pal's Inclinations (2009), Montreal composer Mathieu Lussier's popular Dos Tropicos! (2001), and repeat performances of previous Blythwood commissions including Kevin Lau's Living Miniatures (2015) and Anna Höstman's Float (2017), joined by Cheryl Duvall, piano.

Highlighting this program will be the world premiere of a newly commissioned wind quintet by Emilie LeBel, Haareis auf Morschem Holz (hair ice on rotten wood), and the Ontario premiere of Greg Harrison's Techno/Self (2018), commissioned by Halifax-based quintet, Fifth Wind. 

Generously supported by:

Friday, June 8th, 2018 @ 7:30pm (Tranzac Club, 292 Brunswick Ave)

BLYTHWOOD BLITZ

The last hundred years brought a host of diverse developments in musical style. In western art music, these were most notably marked first by a rejection of conventional harmony, and later a return to tonality. We selected this ambitious program to showcase superstar pieces of the 20th Century repertoire that we’ve been dying to play for years! 

Featured will be the folk music influences in the Brazilian Choro-inspired quintet by Heitor Villa-Lobos, and the Moravian dances in Leoš Janáček’s Mládí. In contrast, experience the fierce modernity of Arvo Pӓrt’s early work Quintettino, the formal rigour, dramatic vitality, and avant-garde techniques used by Karel Husa to evoke birdsong in his Five Poems, and the entrancing minimalist “new simplicity” of Walden, by Hans Abrahamsen.

Featuring special guest: Omar Ho, clarinet (Janáček).

Admission is Pay-What-You-Can (PWYC).

Thursday, July 26th, 2018 @ 7PM (Toronto Music Garden, 479 Queens Quay West) -- CANCELLED DUE TO THUNDERSTORMS

FLIGHTS OF FANCY

Blythwood Winds makes its second appearance this coming July at the Toronto Music Garden as part of the Summer Music in the Garden concert series. The program will include Elliott Carter's Woodwind Quintet (1948), Abigail Richardson-Schulte's Emerge, Alan Menken's classic film music from Beauty and the Beast, and Hungarian composer Endre Szervánszky's Woodwind Quintet No. 1.

Free Admission. Concerts proceed weather permitting. Please call the info desk at 416 973 4000 for up-to-the-minute rain call.

Saturday, July 28th, 2018 @ 5pm (Music at Mount PLeasanT, 375 Mount Pleasant Road)

FLIGHTS OF FANCY

Blythwood Winds again performs for Music at Mount Pleasant summer concert series. The program will include Elliott Carter's Woodwind Quintet (1948), Abigail Richardson-Schulte's Emerge, Alan Menken's classic film music from Beauty and the Beast, and Hungarian composer Endre Szervánszky's Woodwind Quintet No. 1.

Free Admission