Ruth Leon recommends…  Music in the Midnight Sun – Toronto Symphony

Ruth Leon recommends… Music in the Midnight Sun – Toronto Symphony

Ruth Leon recommends

norman lebrecht

May 21, 2024

Music in the Midnight Sun – Toronto Symphony

 For many of us, the Arctic exists only as a fantasy of snow and polar bears and endangered icebergs. Ignorant as ever, I didn’t realise that people actually live in the Arctic, in towns and villages, with fully developed cultures and civilizations but, although they make their own indigenous music, the classical and orchestral music world was just something to watch on television or listen to on recordings.

That all changed in the fall of 1987 when the Toronto Symphony embarked on its most ambitious tour ever. Over one hundred musicians travelled to the Canadian Arctic – further north than any major orchestra had ever been before.

This delightful documentary, Music in the Midnight Sun, is a record of that voyage of discovery and the shared pleasure it engendered, for the citizens of the Far North, for the musicians of the orchestra, and for us.

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Comments

  • professional musician says:

    Wonderful….Having lived in Toronto for three years in the eighties, i recognize many familiar faces

  • professional musician says:

    Larry Weeks was a phenomenal trumpeter.Sadly, he died far too early in a plain crash…

  • professional musician says:

    Plane crash, sorry.

  • V.Lind says:

    “I didn’t realise that people actually live in the Arctic” — what sort of education do they give you in the US? There are Arctic communities in 8 countries, including your own.

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