Sinfonia Toronto

https://spectaculos.ca/spectacle/sinfonia-toronto-bravo-beethoven-toronto

Sinfonia Toronto — Bravo Beethoven · Toronto · Oct 3, 2026 Concert · Trinity-St. Paul's Centre · from $25 · Tickets on Spectaculos

BRAVO BEETHOVEN! Join Sinfonia Toronto, Maestro Nurhan Arman and acclaimed Canadian pianist Sheng Cai for a spectacular season-opening concert on Saturday, October 3. Program features Beethoven’s sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2, unforgettable gems by Mozart and Piazzolla, and the world premiere of Vahram Sargsyan’s Ergir (Homeland).
📅 Saturday, Oct 3 | 7:30 PM, Jean Lamon Concert Hall at the Trinity St-Paul’s Centre 427 Bloor St West.

BRAVO BEETHOVEN! Join Sinfonia Toronto, Maestro Nurhan Arman and acclaimed Canadian pianist Sheng Cai for a spectacular season-opening concert on Saturday, October 3. Program features Beethoven’s sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2, unforgettable gems by Mozart and Piazzolla, and the world premiere of Vahram Sargsyan’s Ergir (Homeland).
📅 Saturday, Oct 3 | 7:30 PM, Jean Lamon Concert Hall at the Trinity St-Paul’s Centre 427 Bloor St West.

BRAVO BEETHOVEN! Sinfonia Toronto launches its 28th season on Saturday, October 3! Join Maestro Nurhan Arman and internationally acclaimed pianist Sheng Cai for a spectacular season-opening concert on Saturday, October 3. Program features Beethoven’s sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2, unforgettable gems by Mozart and Piazzolla, and the world premiere of Vahram Sargsyan’s Ergir (Homeland).

📅 Saturday, Oct 3 | 7:30 PM, Jean Lamon Concert Hall at the Trinity St-Paul’s Centre 427 Bloor St West.

SINFONIA TORONTO - BRAVO BEETHOVEN Saturday, October 3, 2026, 7:30 pm Trinity St-Paul's Centre, 427 Bloor St. West BRAVO BEETHOVEN Homeland Favourites by Beethoven and Mozart bookend a nostalgic journey through ancestral melodies by a prize winning Canadian composer SINFONIA TORONTO NURHAN ARMAN Conductor SHENG CAI

🎼 BRAVO BEETHOVEN! Sinfonia Toronto launches its 28th season on Saturday, October 3! Join Maestro Nurhan Arman and internationally acclaimed pianist Sheng Cai for a spectacular evening featuring:

✨ Beethoven’s sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2
✨ The world premiere of Vahram Sargsyan’s Ergir (Homeland)
✨ Unforgettable gems by Mozart and Piazzolla

📅 Saturday, Oct 3 | 7:30 PM
📍 Trinity St-Paul’s Centre (427 Bloor St W)
🎟️ Tickets: sinfoniatoronto.com

A very timely message from the Director and CEO of Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada.
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Choosing Canadian Arts Means Choosing Canada
An open letter to the arts community from Michelle Chawla,
Director and CEO, Canada Council for the Arts

September 17, 2026
This summer, I spent a lot of time speaking with arts leaders and artists across Canada. Throughout these conversations, one idea emerged repeatedly: at a time of uncertainty and change, the arts are helping Canadians connect and imagine their future. I also heard a strong and consistent interest in Canada from colleagues around the world.

The question before us, then, is not whether the arts matter. It is how we can ensure the arts have the greatest possible impact at a time when Canadians, as well as the wider world, need and want what they offer most.

To answer that question, I believe we should focus on two priorities. Both require collaboration across the arts community and, crucially, strong and sustained public investment in Canada’s arts organizations and artists.

Helping Canadians access the arts more fully
The first priority is ensuring people across the country can experience Canadian arts as fully as possible.

Canadians should be able to engage with the impressive breadth of Canada’s creativity: our stories told in our own voices. Whether in a large city, a suburban neighbourhood, a small town, a northern community, or a rural region, in every province and territory, Canadians of all ages should have opportunities to engage with arts experiences that reflect them and our country.

This priority is also about affordability. At a time when many Canadians are facing difficult choices, we should be asking how to ensure cost does not stand between people and distinctly Canadian arts experiences.

In this moment, many Canadians have responded by choosing Canadian-made goods and services. But a country is also its stories, its voices, its creativity and its shared cultural experiences. When Canadians choose Canadian literature, music, theatre, dance, visual arts, film and the many forms of creative expression taking place here, they are choosing Canada itself: its values and perspectives, and the connections that define us as a people.

Expanding the international reach of Canadian arts
The second priority is expanding the international reach of Canadian arts at a time when the world needs and wants more Canada.

When people think about Canada’s presence on the global stage, they often think about diplomacy, trade or international development. Yet arts and culture are one of our most powerful assets.

The arts are not peripheral to Canada’s international presence. They are one of the most powerful ways we share Canada with the world, shaping how we are perceived and the relationships we build.

This matters because trust is increasingly difficult to build in a fragmented world. The arts create profound connections that transcend borders and cultural differences. They strengthen relationships and create opportunities for exchange that often endure long after official meetings and agreements have ended.

Canada’s artists have always generated international interest and acclaim. The opportunity before us is ensuring they have the support and resources to expand the reach and visibility of Canadian arts on the world stage.

An investment in Canada
All this to say, at this moment we need to focus on ensuring more Canadians can experience the benefits of the arts, and more people around the world can encounter the creativity of Canadian arts.

Achieving this will require a strong and sustained investment in our arts organizations and artists.

Let’s amplify the message that it’s an investment worth making.

Because when we invest in the arts, we invest in Canada.

At this defining moment for our country, we have an unmissable opportunity to ensure the arts reach more Canadians, more communities and more of the world than ever before.

Introducing composer Vahram Sargsyan whose ERGIR Homeland will be premiered at the BRAVO BEETHOVEN concert on October 3.

Vahram Sargsyan (Sarkissian) is a Montreal-based Armenian-Canadian composer, conductor, and experimental vocalist whose work bridges medieval Armenian chant, extended vocal technique, and collaborative creation.

His music has been heard at Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie, the Palais Garnier, and Stockholm’s Konserthuset. Vahram Sargsyan has presented at major symposia and conferences, including WSCM (Barcelona), ACDA conference (Pittsburgh), Europa Cantat festival (Tallinn), and Podium conference (Toronto).

Recent honors include the 2023 Jules Léger Prize and CALQ’s 2024 Artist of the Year in Laval. His arrangement of the medieval chant “Great Mystery,” premiered by the BBC Singers; his choral work “Joyful Light” has been performed over one hundred times worldwide.

Did you know that Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto Was Actually His First? This is one of Beethoven's great numbering tricks - so why No. 2 was actually No. 1?

Beethoven began composing it in Bonn between 1787 and 1789, when he was still a teenager, well before the Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15. He carried the manuscript to Vienna and kept revising it through 1790, 1793, 1794-95 and 1798, then again before publication.

He first played it himself on March 29, 1795 at Vienna's Burgtheater, his first public appearance in Vienna. When his publisher wanted to issue the two early piano concertos, Beethoven held back B-flat concerto as the more traditional work and let the grander C major go out first as Op. 15 in 1801 - the B-flat concerto following that December as Op. 19. That's why the opus numbers are reversed from the composition order.