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Anton Kuerti was a child prodigy who has gone on to become one of the finest interpreters of the piano outputs of Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. He has hardly limited himself to that trio, however, as his repertory also includes Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Czerny, Franck, and Scriabin, as well as contemporary composers, like the Canadians Oskar Morawetz and Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté. Kuerti is also a composer himself, with a substantial output of both large and small works that includes a Piano Concerto (1985). Kuerti has toured throughout Canada, the U.S., U.K., Europe, and Japan, and has recorded for Analekta, CBC Records, Doremi, and other labels. Also, he has taught at the University of Toronto and given master classes at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. In addition, Kuerti has been a concert organizer and peace activist, and in 1988 ran unsuccessfully as a New Democratic Party candidate for Canadian Parliament.

Anton Kuerti was born in Vienna, Austria, on July 21, 1938. Raised in the U.S., he became a naturalized citizen in 1944. Kuerti studied piano with Edmund Goldman in Boston and at age 11 debuted with the Boston Pops Orchestra under Arthur Fiedler in Grieg's Piano Concerto.

After studies at the Longy School in Cambridge, MA (1948-1952), Kuerti studied at the Peabody Institute (1952-1953) with Ernö Balogh in piano and Henry Cowell in composition. He followed with further keyboard study at the Cleveland Institute (1953-1955) with Arthur Loesser and at the Curtis Institute (1955-1958) with Rudolf Serkin and Mieczyslaw Horszowski.

Kuerti was active as a performer in his student years, appearing with the MIT Symphony Orchestra in 1951 and at the Marlboro Festival annually from 1953-1956. In 1957 Kuerti won the Philadelphia Orchestra Youth Prize and the Leventritt Award, the latter yielding concert engagements with such orchestras as the Cleveland, New York Philharmonic, and Detroit Symphony. Kuerti debuted in Toronto in 1961, replacing Myra Hess. Kuerti relocated to Canada in 1965, becoming a naturalized citizen there in 1984.

From 1968-1972 Kuerti was associate professor of piano at the University of Toronto. In 1974-1975 Kuerti recorded the 32 Beethoven sonatas to great acclaim for Philips, and in 1976 he presented them live over CBC Radio in a 19-program series.

Kuerti, who has regularly appeared at music festivals, founded his own in 1980, the Festival of Sound, held annually in Parry Sound, Ontario. Despite his busy concert schedule Kuerti remained busy composing, too, turning out such works as the 1986 Piano Man Suite; the 1989 Trio for clarinet, cello, and piano; and 1996 Concertino, for piano, violin, and flute.

In 1998 Kuerti was designated an Officer of the Order of Canada by the Canadian government. Despite his busy concert schedule in the new century Kuerti served as artistic director in 2002 of the Carl Czerny Music Festival in Edmonton. The first winner of a Juno Award for Best Classical Album (1977), Kuerti received his fifth Juno Award nomination in 2011 for his Doremi CD of Schumann's Sonata No. 2 and Phantasie, Op. 17.

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is generally ranked among the finest Canadian orchestras. It has a substantial recording catalog, much of it on internationally prominent labels outside Canada.

In 1906, conductor Frank Welsman established an ensemble called the Toronto Conservatory Symphony Orchestra, renamed the Toronto Symphony Orchestra two years later. The group presented concerts in Toronto's Massey Music Hall and soon began attracting the likes of composer/performers Rachmaninov and Elgar, the latter appearing in 1911 to lead the orchestra in his oratorio The Dream of Gerontius. World War I dented the orchestra's membership, and it disbanded after the 1918 armistice. In 1922, a new Toronto Symphony Orchestra was formed by local musicians and conductor Luigi von Kunits. Named the New Symphony Orchestra, the ensemble gave its first concert in Massey Hall in April of 1923. In 1927, the orchestra assumed the Toronto Symphony Orchestra name. Two years later, it began weekly concert broadcasts on the national Canadian Broadcasting Corporation network; those continue today on the Symphony Hall program, along with performances by other orchestras. Ernest MacMillan succeeded von Kunits upon the latter's death in 1931. A native Canadian, he remained conductor until 1956 and is still the group's longest-serving conductor. MacMillan led the orchestra's first recordings, one of which, devoted to Holst's The Planets, appeared on the RCA label.

Walter Süsskind succeeded MacMillan in 1956. Süsskind was ahead of the curve in programming avant-garde composers such as Luciano Berio. Conductor Seiji Ozawa, then 30, was appointed music director in 1965. Tours abroad -- to England and France (1966) and Japan (1969) -- brought the orchestra exposure and acclaim and did the same for the fast-rising Ozawa. Karel Ancerl was appointed music director in 1969. He led hugely successful Beethoven and Brahms festivals in 1970 and 1971, respectively. Ancerl died in 1973, and various conductors held the podium until Andrew Davis was appointed music director in 1975. Davis led the orchestra on multiple tours and several critically acclaimed recordings, including one for Columbia Records of Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen Suite and Taras Bulba. Since 1982, the Toronto Symphony has presented its concerts in Toronto's Roy Thomson Hall.

The orchestra's recordings have often appeared on major international labels, including Angel, Sony Classical, and, often in the 2010s, Chandos. When Davis stepped down in 1988, Gunther Herbig succeeded him, serving for five years. Jukka-Pekka Saraste was appointed music director in 1994 and left at the end of the 2001-2002 season. He and the orchestra recorded for the Finlandia label, issuing an album with excerpts from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet Ballet and Suite from The Love for Three Oranges. Peter Oundjian served as the orchestra's music director from 2004 to 2018, steering the group through financial problems. He was succeeded in 2020 by conductor Gustavo Gimeno; despite a pandemic-time hiatus in 2020 and 2021, Gimeno's contract was extended until 2030, and he led the orchestra in a 2024 Harmonia Mundi recording of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphonie. ~ James Manheim

One of the leading conductors from the late 20th and early 21st centuries, Andrew Davis conducted symphonic and operatic repertory with equal distinction and received praise for his performances of the music of British composers, particularly the works of Vaughan Williams, Elgar, and especially Michael Tippett. Davis was the conductor laureate of the Toronto, BBC, and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.

Davis was born on February 2, 1944, in Ashridge, Hertfordshire, England. He took to the keyboard early on, and his first serious studies came with his enrollment at the Royal College of Music in London, followed by further instruction at King's College, Cambridge, where he excelled in organ performance and scholarship. The young Davis was gradually drawn toward conducting, studying at Rome's Academy of St. Cecilia with Franco Ferrara. His first major position came in 1970 when he was appointed associate conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for two years.

Davis' ascent toward international recognition came quickly in the years that followed: he became the principal guest conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic in 1974 and the following year was appointed music director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. During his 13-year tenure in Toronto, Davis led many successful tours abroad and made a series of celebrated recordings, including those of Handel's Messiah with soloists Florence Quivar, Kathleen Battle, and Samuel Ramey, and Janácek's Taras Bulba and The Cunning Little Vixen Suite. When he left the Toronto Symphony in 1988, it is generally agreed that Davis had noticeably improved the ensemble and greatly enhanced its international reputation. He became the conductor laureate of the Toronto Symphony when he stepped down.

In 1988, Davis accepted the directorship of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. The following year, Davis married soprano Gianna Rolandi, to whom he was married until her death in 2021; the couple had one son, Edward, born in 1989. That year, Davis was appointed chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. With the BBC Symphony, he led successful tours abroad, including to Hong Kong, the U.S., and three excursions to Japan. Davis' recordings with the BBC Symphony included a variety of works from various periods, but among contemporary composers, he tended to favor the British, issuing recordings of compositions by Harrison Birtwistle (The Mask of Orpheus), David Sawer (Byrnan Wood), and others. In the 1990s, Davis also gave concerts and made recordings with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and several others. In addition, he conducted operatic performances at the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Bavarian State Opera, where his rendition of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes was critically acclaimed.

In 1999, Davis was knighted, and in 2000, he departed his BBC Symphony Orchestra and Glyndebourne posts. He then accepted the appointment of music director and principal conductor of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Davis' performances in Chicago included Wagner's Ring Cycle, Massenet's Thaïs (with Renée Fleming), and Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage. During this time, Davis was heard on a number of recordings, including The Very Best of Thomas Hampson (2005), The Last Night of the Proms (2008), and 100 Best Tenor Arias (2009).

Davis was the chief conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra from 2013 until 2019, leading that group in a three-volume series of the orchestral works of Charles Ives. He served as conductor laureate for the BBC Symphony and Melbourne Symphony after leaving his chief conductor posts. In 2016, Davis led the Toronto Symphony on a recording of his arrangement of Handel's Messiah on Chandos. Davis recorded prolifically throughout the 2010s and into the 2020s as an exclusive artist with Chandos; among these recordings is a survey of Eugene Goossens' orchestral works with the Melbourne Symphony, the third volume of which was issued in 2020. That year, he was also heard on a performance of Massenet's Thais, leading the Toronto Symphony. His tenure with the Lyric Opera concluded in 2021, and he was succeeded by Enrique Mazzola. That year, Davis conducted the London Symphony on a recording of Robert Simpson's Symphony No. 5. Davis was diagnosed with leukemia in 2022 and died on April 20, 2024. ~ TiVo Staff