Explore the fusion of the arts, science and culture in the 17th and 18th centuries in this imaginative performance commemorating Galileo's first public demonstration of the telescope. The Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra performs music by Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Bach and Handel to a backdrop of high-definition images from the Hubble telescope, NASA and Canadian astronomers.
Actor Shaun Smyth narrates a compelling script and the musicians, playing by memory, weave in and around a magical stage set. The Galileo Project was created, programmed and scripted by Alison Mackay, and filmed by the international award-winning 90th Parallel Productions.
Resplendent in his powdered wig and 18th-century garb, Maestro Handel (aka Director of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir Ivars Taurins) leads Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, a stellar casts of soloists - soprano Suzie LeBlanc, countertenor Daniel Taylor, tenor Rufus Muller, and baritoen Locky Chung - and a mass audience choir made up of more than 1000 Tafelmusik fans as they perform Handel's baroque masterpiece.
A Toronto tradition beloved by thousands, Tafelmusik's annual Sing-Along Messiah has become a revered family ritual for many Torontonians over the past 25 years. Toronto's largest sing-along event, Tafelmusik's Sing-Along Messiah sells out every years, and participants are genuinely moved by the experience of joining their voices with hundreds of others to make music.
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra presents a magical journey to the meeting places of baroque art and music - visit five European homes where exquisite works by Bach, Handel, Vivaldi and Marais are played against a backdrop of gorgeous paintings by Vermeer, Canaletto and Watteau . Beautifully filmed in Toronto, at the Handel House in London UK and in the gondolas, historic buildings and cafes of Venice, Italy. This is a totally memorized performance by the virtuoso players of Tafelmusik.