The Women’s Musical Club of Toronto (WMCT) is looking toward a season marked by vocal gems and some of Canada’s most sought-after chamber musicians.
In October, the WMCT will host the Campbell Fagan Park Trio, which consists of clarinetist James Campbell, soprano Leslie Fagan, and pianist Angela Park. Juno Award-winning James Campbell, who is a faculty member at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, has received both the Order of Canada and The Queen’s Golden Jubilee. Fagan, who is an Assistant Professor of Voice at Sir Wilfrid Laurier University, has performed on stages including the Royal Albert Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Centre. Park has performed in Canada, the United States, Japan, Mexico, and across Europe, and is currently a Professor of Piano at Western University. Together, they will perform works by Schubert, de Falla, Verdi, and others (Oct. 3).
Lithuanian-born violinist and conductor Julian Rachlin will take to the stage for the WMCT’s second concert of the year. Rachlin is currently the Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, and the Principal Artistic Partner of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He will be joined by Canadian violinist/violist Sarah McElravy, cellist Karen Ouzounian, and pianist Sheng Cai for a program of Brahms, Penderecki, Bach, and more (Nov. 14).
Originally formed in 2013 at the Royal College of Music in London, the Marmen Quartet has performed throughout Australia and New Zealand, Europe and North America. Ringing in 2025 with the WMCT, the quartet will play Haydn’s String Quartet in E-flat major, Op.33 No.2, Bartók’s String Quartet No. 3, Salina Fisher’s Heal, and Debussy’s String Quartet in G minor, Op.10 (March 13).
Following this, American-Canadian soprano Midori Marsh will return to the WMCT stage with a vocal recital. An alumna of the Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio, Marsh won the WMCT’s Career Development Award in 2024. She also recently received the first prize at the 2023 Quilico Awards, was a semifinalist at the Metropolitan Opera’s 2023 Laffont Competition, and was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award for her interpretation of Papagena in the COC’s 2022 production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute (April 3).
The WMCT will close its season with another vocal recital, this time by tenor Asitha Tennekoon. Tennekoon has performed leading roles across Canada, with companies such as Opéra de Montréal, Against the Grain Theatre, Tapestry Opera, and the Canadian Opera Company.
This time, he will present works for tenor, piano, and string quartet, in collaboration with pianist Steven Philcox. Along with Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge and Ian Cusson’s Love Songs on Poems of Michael Ondaatje, written for Tennekoon, he will perform a work commissioned by the WMCT (May 8).
For more information on this season’s performers, concert programs, and other details: www.wmct.on.ca
