Overview
24-year-old cellist Bryan Cheng is fast-becoming internationally renowned, having already won second prize and Audience Choice at the Geneva International Music Competition. His Toronto solo recital debut includes an energetic program that pays homage to the magical intersection of music, dance, and nature at the Toronto Music Garden. Through the voice of the prized ‘Bonjour’ Stradivarius cello from 1696 (on loan from the Canada Council for the Arts Musical Instrument Bank), Cheng will perform masterworks and rarely heard gems of the cello repertoire, spanning four continents and three centuries. The program will culminate in Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, the piece that inspired Yo-Yo Ma to create the Toronto Music Garden in 1999.
G. Cassadó, Suite for Solo Cello
A. Piazzolla, Tango Etude No. 1
T. Mayuzumi, Bunraku
El cant dels ocells
M. O’Connor, Appalachia Waltz
M. Summer, Julie-O
A. Piazzolla, Tango Etude No. 3
Bach, Suite for Solo Cello No. 1, BWV 1007
*program subject to change
About Bryan Cheng
First Prize winner of the UNISA International Strings Competition in Pretoria (2022) and Second Prize and Audience Prize winner of the Geneva International Music Competition (2021), Bryan Cheng is internationally acclaimed as “a fine artist, distinguished, of great class” (Le Devoir) and for the “dreamy beauty” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) of his music-making. Cheng gave his sold-out Carnegie Hall recital debut at age 14, his Elbphilharmonie debut in 2018 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and in 2022–2023, he will make his Berliner Philharmonie debut with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Solo highlights of recent and upcoming seasons include debuts with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra, St. Petersburg Symphony Orchestra at Musical Olympus Festival, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal at Festival de Lanaudière, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra Ottawa, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Panamá, with conductors such as Susanna Mälkki, Peter Oundjian, Matthias Pintscher, Dalia Stasevska, and Joshua Weilerstein. In the 2021–2022 season, as cellist of the Cheng² Duo and chamber musician, he performs in Paris, London, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Brussels, San Diego, Toronto, Ottawa and Edmonton, as well as at OSM’s Virée classique, Germany’s Heidelberger Frühling Festival and Italy’s Trasimeno Festival with pianist Angela Hewitt. Cheng has released a trilogy of award-winning albums on the German label audite and plays the 1696 ‘Bonjour’ Stradivari cello on loan from the Canada Council Musical Instrument Bank.
Dates & Times
August 4
7pm
60 mins
Venue
Wheelchair accessible
Outdoors
Between Lower Spadina and Dan Leckie Way