“ …the
Aradia Ensemble vibrantly
conveying the difficult blend
of dance-like wit and muscular
energy in Boyce’s music…
Fabulous!” GRAMOPHONE, EDITOR’S
CHOICE AWARD
ARADIA ENSEMBLE
Aradia is one of the most exciting period instrument ensembles
to emerge in recent years. Under the direction of Kevin
Mallon, hailed by the Wholenote as “Canada’s
Crown Prince of Period Performance” (July 2008), Aradia
presents an innovative concert series that incorporates
old-world artistry and modern-day relevance. Aradia exploded
onto the Canadian music scene in 1995 as a collective and
has been growing in name and ambition since then. Aradia’s
projects often include singers, actors or dancers as well
as anywhere from five to thirty instrumentalists; taking
part in these performances are some of Canada's leading
early music specialists.
Since 1996, Aradia Ensemble has had a contract with the
Naxos recording company and has produced more than 35 CDs,
which include the works of Bach, Purcell, Charpentier, Lully
and Handel. Recently these recordings have had particular
success, winning two Gramophone Editor's Choice Awards (the
Boyce symphonies in August 2005, and Handel’s Water
Music and Music for the Royal Firework in March 2006). The
Ensemble gets significant airtime on the CBC.
At the beginning of 2006, Aradia created a home base for
itself at the revamped Gladstone Hotel on Queen Street West.
This has proved to be an ideal venue for presenting small
scale, but unusual concerts. The Ensemble also performs
larger works at the beautiful Blessed Sacrament Church in
North Toronto, and is looking to expand into venues elsewhere
in Ontario.
The Ensemble has made film soundtracks and music videos,
with a Bravofact! production planned for the spring of 2009.
The Ensemble also takes part in musical collaborations.
Since 2002, Aradia Ensemble has joined forces each year
with Opera in Concert to perform a major work from the Baroque
operatic repertoire: Handel's Semele (2002), Rameau's Castor
et Pollux (2003), Handel's opera Rinaldo (2004), Vivaldi's
La Griselda (2006), Mozart’s Zaide (2007) and Handel’s
Tamerlano (2008). (Castor et Pollux, Rinaldo and Griselda
were also released on CD on the Naxos label). They will
perform Haydn’s opera Il mondo della luna. In June
2006, the Ensemble became the orchestra in residence at
the Grand River Festival outside of Kitchener, a role they
have filled for the past three years.
Aradia has performed across Canada and abroad at the Ottawa
Chamber Music Festival; the Ottawa Festival of Sacred Music;
the New Zealand International Chamber Music Festival; the
Festival nel Chiosro in Tuscany, Italy, and at the Society
for Renaissance and Baroque Music in Pittsburgh, USA. This
season, Aradia has been invited to perform in Boston and
at the Haydn Festispiele Eisenstadt in Austria, as well
as the Esterhazy Festival in Hungary. Aradia is also proud
to be the moving force for the Toronto International Haydn
Festival, which will take place June 1-10, 2009.
Aradia was the daughter of Apollo’s twin sisters,
who was sent by the gods to teach humankind to order the
music of the natural world into song.
