Douglas McNabney is remarkably candid when he talks about summer music festivals. “We’re always looking for a new premise to do the same thing,” he says. “Year in and year out, we do the same 19th-century programming, and try to find a different way of looking at it.”
In search of something genuinely different, the violist and Artistic Director of the Toronto Summer Music festival found a point of departure in the Pan American Games, which are being held in Toronto this summer at the same time as the festival.
“I thought, let’s do the music of the Americas as well,” he says. “Once I realized how much there is and where all the various threads lead, it was a little frightening. But it quickly became clear that this would be about the new world, and all the new directions and genres that were spawned in the new world.”
The result is a schedule that blithely crosses traditional boundaries to present not only refined classical programming, but film soundtrack composers, a brass band, jazz, a multimedia song-and-dance tribute to Argentina and a musical, The Last Five Years. The latter offers a good example of the philosophy underpinning McNabney’s dramaturgy.
“Musicals are a quintessential American form, essentially opera that has been transformed into a style of music that reaches a larger public,” he says. “In presenting The Last Five Years, we are challenging our audience to look at it from an operatic side, and think a little bit further about their notions of where high art ends and popular culture begins, and where the two intersect.”
It’s an appropriate benchmark for the tenth year of the festival, which was started by a small, dedicated group of classical music fans in Toronto to fill the gap when the city’s orchestra, ballet and opera company disappear for the summer. This will be McNabney’s fifth season at the helm. Along with a fresh approach to programming, he has brought renewed energy to the festival’s Academy, which offers a unique educational opportunity for young musicians. McNabney pared down the number of students to 30, put them all on full scholarships, and integrated them deeply into the performance schedule. Six of this year’s 20 concerts feature young fellows playing alongside their mentors.
“The experience of performing the repertoire with people who have played it hundreds of times is very efficient pedagogy,” McNabney says. “And it’s a lot of fun. When you have people onstage who are thrilled to be there, and thrilled to be learning this music for the first time, it’s a source of new inspiration and energy for everybody.”
Working from that model, McNabney invites seasoned performers who are skilled both in playing the chamber repertoire and teaching it. This year, that includes luminaries such as Martin Beaver, former first violinist of the Tokyo String Quartet; Mark Kosower, principal cellist of the Cleveland Orchestra; violinist Harumi Rhodes, a founding member of Trio Cavatina; Henrik Brendstrup, the original cellist of the Danish String Quartet; and violist Paul Coletti, head of the string department at the Colburn School. “These are all chamber music specialists,” McNabney says. “They may not have the name recognition of famous soloists, but they are at the very top of their game.”