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New Music Concerts Robert Aitken, artistic director

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NMC Annual Appeal


Dear Friends,
Now that concert activities for the season are over, we can concentrate on our annual fundraising campaign. The Six Hundred Year Anniversaries event gave us a good jumpstart and I am pleased to say that many of you did not wait for this note and have already made donations. Once again, to ensure that we are able to balance the books, the Koerner Foundation has offered to match the money we raise so please help us take advantage of this generosity. Every gift makes a difference, especially when it is doubled in this way. There is strength in numbers and although it does not always equate with large amounts of money, we· are proud to be able to print in our programs one of the longest lists of donors in town. Please stay LISTED!
Yours sincerely,
Robert Aitken
Artistic Director

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New Music Concerts has enjoyed a leadership role in Toronto’s new music scene throughout its history. Founded in 1971 by internationally acclaimed Canadian musicians Robert Aitken and Norma Beecroft, NMC presented its first concert in January 1972 with guest composer/conductor Luciano Berio. Since that time most of the world’s renowned composers including John Adams, Harrison Birtwistle, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Peter Maxwell Davies, Morton Feldman, Philip Glass, Heinz Holliger, Maurizio Kagel, Helmut Lachenmann, Toru Takemitsu, Iannis Xenakis, Walter Zimmermann and, early in their careers, rising stars like Tan Dun, Toshio Hosokawa, Jörg Widmann and Raminta Serksnyte, have come to Toronto at NMC’s invitation. Our strong support of Canadian composers through commissions and performances and by combining them with international artists has promoted their success. A short list of some of our most notable Canadian commissions includes Claude Vivier’s Zipangu, Barbara Pentland’s Eventa, Harry Somer’s Chura Churum, John Beckwith’s Eureka, Harry Freedman’s Strands of Blue, Alexina Louie’s Sanctuary, John Weinzweig’s Prisoner of Conscience, Bruce Mather’s Ausone, Gilles Tremblay’s Triojubilus, plus Omar Daniel’s Zwei Lieder nach Rilke and Chris Paul Harman’s Amerika both of which went on to win the Jules Léger Prize.

Since its inception NMC has presented more than 335 concerts, commissioned more than 130 Canadian and international works and performed some 700 Canadian and world premieres. As English Canada's senior contemporary music society, NMC's prime activity is producing high calibre concerts of contemporary music, but our activities have included a very broad range of presentation from contemporary classics, to electroacoustics, mixed- and multi-media presentations, sound sculpture, radiophonic works, films and music theatre (including world premiere performances of R. Murray Schafer’s Princess of the Stars on Heart Lake in 1981 and the North American premieres of John Cage’s Roaratorio at Convocation Hall and Thorkell Sigurbjornsson’s Grettir at the Betty Oliphant Theatre). Current programs reflect the ongoing concern to balance all aspects of our mandate to profile established and emerging Canadian and international composers.