Celebration of Small Ensembles - May 3

Celebration of Small Ensembles - May 3, 4:00-6:00 pm

Music Toronto invites you to the Celebration of Small Ensembles – ancient, classic and 21st century music boldly curated and performed by small ensembles. A new space for social gathering and musical discovery. All curious listeners are welcome.

Celebration of Small Ensembles events will take place between 4-6 pm on Saturday April 5th, May 3rd, and June 7th. Please note that this page is for tickets to the April 5th event only.

3-Concert Pass $90. click here to visit pass purchase page.

Arts Workers $20

Students and minors FREE by request (limited availability). Adults (up to two) accompanying minors half price. Submit requests to tickets@music-toronto.com.

Program Details

4:00 pm

Duo Mycelia

Isabella Perron, violin/voice/piano
Simon Gidora, violin/voice/piano

A Personal Journey of Being

Through sound and song, Duo Mycelia investigates the experience of navigating the vast sea of life as a conscious entity - separate yet connected. A through-composed work consisting of a collection of songs and instrumental interludes, it explores the ideas of individuality, freedom, responsibility, gratitude, loss, and catharsis. This journey is intended to be universal, yet individual - to speak to the common themes that we all grapple with in life but face in our own unique ways. Sit back, let go, and see where the journey takes you.

Concert Programme TBD

5:00pm
Program TBD
VC2 + Amy Hillis

Bryan Holt, cello
Amahl Arulanandam, cello
Amy Hillis, violin

Program Description TBD

Concert Programme TBD

Performer Biographies

Duo Mycelia

Duo Mycelia takes its name from the mycelial network found throughout the world's forests - a vast subterranean system of highly intelligent symbiotic connections. Multi-instrumentalists/singers Isabella Perron and Simon Gidora believe that music, much like mycelium, connects all living beings, allowing us to nourish each other through shared experiences and visions. Rooted in their classical training, Duo Mycelia also takes inspiration from jazz, folk, minimalism, spectralism, and the fractal world we live in. Their music explores the ideas of resonance, catharsis, and the state of in-between: between order and chaos, sound and silence, light and dark.

Having known each other since 2014, where they met competing at the Canadian National Music Festival, they recently both graduated from the Glenn Gould School in Toronto, where Isabella pursued a BMus in Violin Performance, and Simon an ADP in Vocal Performance. Previously, Simon studied Violin Performance and Conducting at McGill, and Isabella Viola Performance at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. Growing up, both Simon and Isabella were immersed in many kinds of music-making through piano, voice, violin, and any other instruments they could get their hands on.

In June of 2024, the duo was invited to spend a week as residents of the Tuscan Creative Lab in Monte San Savino, Tuscany, where they performed in the historic 14th century Gargonza Castle. Since September 2024, Duo Mycelia has been based on the Sunshine Coast in British Columbia where they are exploring sounds in their home-studio, actively involved in the local music community, and spending much of their time in the forest.

Isabella Perron

Violinist, violist, singer, and pianist Isabella d’Éloize Perron is a passionate advocate for music's transformative power. She believes that music and nature are deeply intertwined, and that they both have the ability to teach us about the human experience and have profound healing properties. Originally from Montreal, Isabella spent her formative years in Calgary studying violin with Bill van der Sloot, and piano with Glen Montgomery at Mount Royal University, and recently completed her Bachelor’s degree in violin performance at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music with Erika Raum in Toronto. Although classically trained, Isabella has always loved music of all kinds, and dedicates a significant portion of her time to improvisation, composition, and arranging.

She made her solo debut as a violinist at age 7 with the I Musici String Ensemble, and has since performed as soloist with orchestras worldwide including the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra (2012-13), the Peninsula Symphony (2016), the Prague Radio Orchestra (2016-17), and most recently the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra and Royal Conservatory Orchestra (2024). She has also picked up numerous awards along the way with first prize at the National Music Festival of Canada (2014), first prize at the International Radio Competition for Young Musicians Concertino Praga (2015), the Michael Measures Prize of the NYO (2020), and the Orford Musique competition's Grand Prize (2021). As part of her Radio Canada Classical Revelation award (2020-21), she commissioned Métis composer Gregory Borton to create a work for piano and violin, which they recorded with Radio-Canada. Isabella is also a grateful recipient of the Sylva-Gelber Foundation award (2024-25), which is allowing her to pursue more self-directed studies and explore recording/producing original music.

In April of 2024, Isabella completed a tour with several sold-out concerts across Canada and the United States, as well as an album, performing Vivaldi’s & Piazzolla’s Four Seasons with the Filmharmonique Orchestra, which included her debut on the Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall.

Being a multidisciplinary artist has been a long-standing feature of Isabella’s musical journey. From 2009-2011, she played a major role as pianist, singer, and violinist in Gregory Charles’s autobiographical show titled MusicMan with over 80 performances across Quebec, and in 2012, she released her first album, Isabella 12, where she sings francophone songs and improvises on violin.

Apart from music, Isabella loves spending time on the West Coast of British Columbia foraging wild mushrooms, forest bathing, and being with the ocean. You may sometimes find her and her partner Simon doing Qigong on the beach…or in the forest!

*Isabella plays on a Guadagnini violin, 1768, generously on loan from CANIMEX

Simon Gidora

Simon Gidora is a British Columbia born violinist, singer, pianist, and conductor.

Simon is a recent graduate of the Artist Diploma program in Voice Performance at the Glenn Gould School (GGS) of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto under the tutelage of Welsh Baritone Jason Howard. As an opera singer, Simon made his debut as the Steward in GGS’s acclaimed 2023 production of Jonathan Dove’s Flight. While at GGS, he performed in masterclasses for Edith Wiens, Ema Nikolovska, and Warren Jones.

Previously, he obtained a BMus in Violin Performance under Axel Strauss with a minor in Orchestral Conducting from McGill University. Before that, he spent time at Mount Royal University as part of the APP (Advanced Performance Program) studying violin and voice.

His previous violin teachers include Bill van der Sloot, David Gillham, Mary Sokol-Brown, and Kathleen Hovey. Previous voice teachers include John Mac Master, Winston Noren, Alan Corbishley, and Shelley Dillon. He studied piano with Patricia Greenfield and Julie Rutter.

Simon remains passionate about music making in all forms. He is particularly interested in chamber music and art song repertoire, where he feels the more intimate recital setting allows the music to be fully experienced and appreciated.

Simon is also an active music teacher of voice, violin, piano and music theory. He believes that learning is a superpower, and that everyone, no matter their age, can benefit immensely from finding their own natural, uninhibited artistic voice. He has been teaching privately for 10 years, and recently spent two years as a faculty member of the Musical Arts Academy in Etobicoke, Ontario.

He has recently returned to the Sunshine Coast, having grown up studying music there, performing in the SCFPA, and taking in as many Coast Recital Society concerts as he could. He is thrilled to be back in the community, where he is also now fiddle instructor for the Coast String Fiddlers.

Outside of music, Simon loves to spend as much time as possible outdoors, where he finds the natural world provides endless artistic inspiration. He also enjoys cooking for friends and family, foraging wild mushrooms, daily musical improvisations with his partner Isabella, and doing Qigong.

VC2

VC2 Cello Duo is an innovative cello duo ensemble that captivates audiences through their performances of classical masterworks, unknown gems and boundary pushing music. Comprised of cellists Amahl Arulanandam and Bryan Holt, CBC Music calls VC2 “a tight unit, with excellent intonation and expression.” They present artistically challenging, yet accessible programs in venues ranging from intimate cabarets to Roy Thomson Hall.

As respected cellists, they have performed as part of leading music organizations including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, Soundstreams, Art of Time Ensemble, Continuum Contemporary Music, New Music Concerts, Music in the Barns, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Against the Grain Theatre and others. The duo have been featured artists at Toronto Summer Music Festival, Ottawa Chamberfest, The Harbourfront Centre, Indian River Festival, Ottawa New Music Creators, 21C Music Festival, Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg, New Works Calgary, Ritornello Festival, the Prairie Cello Institute and soundSCAPE Festival (Italy).

Committed to the creation of new works by living composers, especially those from their home country of Canada, VC2 commissioned five Canadian composers to create works based on the Beethoven Cello Sonatas project. In addition to their performances, VC2, with the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council, recorded these works and in fall 2018, released the album Beethoven’s Cellists which CBC Radio calls a “first-rate” recording. An digital EP of the duo’s classical favourites titled Verspielt was released in May 2020.

In February 2018, VC2 embarked on a tour of the East Coast of Canada, presented by Debut Atlantic. They were also selected as Prairie Debut touring artists for the 2019/20 season. Recent engagements include being featured artists in the 2020 Toronto Summer Music Festival, the 2021 edition of the Royal Conservatory of Music’s 21C Festival and Prince Edward County’s BigLake Arts Festival. Most recently, VC2 released their second album titled I and Thou on Leaf Music.

Amy Hillis

Amy is a founding member and manager of the prairie-based Horizon String Quartet, a group dedicated to engaging K-12 students with live chamber music. During seven different tours, the HSQ has performed over 200 interactive concerts for school assemblies in 100 different Canadian cities. At McGill University, Amy established a course titled "Chamber Music and Engaging New Audiences". She created this course in order to give undergraduate students the tools to communicate their own musical inspirations to younger audiences unfamiliar with the chamber music genre. Amy is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at York University’s School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design and is continuing to build community partnerships with her appointment as the Helen Carswell Chair in Community-Engaged Research in the Arts.

As a violinist, Amy has "a rich, warm sound and has mastered the violin with such ease, that it is impossible to ignore her passion in performance" (Ludwig Van Montréal). Originally from Regina, Saskatchewan, Amy collaborates with performers and composers around the world to explore new approaches to classical and contemporary music. She has commissioned new Canadian works by Fjóla Evans, Vincent Ho, Laurence Jobidon, Gabriel Dufour-Laperrière, Andrew Staniland, Jocelyn Morlock, Nicole Lizée, Carmen Braden, Randolph Peters and Jordan Pal. As part of the meagan&amy duo, Amy was selected as winner of the inaugural "Pan-Canadian Recital Tour" to perform 50 recitals across all thirteen Canadian provinces and territories during the 2019-2020 season. Her duo’s debut album titled Roots demonstrates the connections between select Canadian compositions and works from the traditional canon of classical repertoire. Amy is winner of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition, an artistic residency at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, the McGill Concerto Competition, and the Sylva Gelber Foundation Music Award.

Amy holds a Doctor of Music in Violin Performance from McGill University, completed under the guidance of Axel Strauss and with the support of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). She completed her Master of Music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Ian Swensen and her Bachelor of Music at McGill University with Denise Lupien. While growing up in Regina, Amy studied with the concertmaster of the Regina Symphony Orchestra, Eduard Minevich.