TD Encounters: Mark Rothko and Music

In parternship with Soundstreams, this special event is centred around music inspired by iconic American painter Mark Rothko, and will include a riveting discussion on Rothko and music moderated by Koffler Arts General Director Matthew Jocelyn, with Soundstreams Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney, Joyce Zemans (art historian and Senior Scholar and University Professor Emerita, York University), Tim Albery (stage director of The Bright Divide), and composer Cecilia Livingston.

A live performance will include excerpts from Morton Feldman’s masterwork Rothko Chapel, which premiered at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas in 1972, and Cecilia Livingston’s mark, a newly commissioned companion work to the Feldman, to be premiered by Soundstreams during The Bright Divide at the new TD Music Hall on November 10, and 11, 2023. Excerpts will be performed on October 30 by Steven Dann (viola), Gregory Oh (piano), and Alex Samaras (voice).

MARK ROTHKO & MUSIC is a companion event to Soundstreams’ season opening concert this November, The Bright Divide. Presented in collaboration with Koffler Arts, this free TD Encounters event takes place on October 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Holy Blossom Temple (1950 Bathurst St.) in the Mishkan Room.

The Soundstreams TD Encounters series aims to bring people together through music and discussion to explore themes that resonate in their communities. New Canadian music stimulates and provokes ‘cultural conversations’, music with underlying themes that resonate with our time and place.