Performed by “Toronto’s best young chamber musicians” (Bachtrack), this unique program titled Always Darkest … Dawn Always charts a course across a single night, framing the emotional apotheosis within Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night, and its depiction of the tension between and reconciliation of two lovers. This program juxtaposes three settings of Josquin de Prez’s Renaissance song Mille Regretz (1000 Regrets) with contemporary chamber works, beginning at precisely sunset in Toronto (5:18pm, January 24, 2026) and reimagining each work as a time and corresponding emotional state over the course of the night, concluding with dawn and the lovers’ renewal. 

Program:

Kaija Saariaho: Oi Kuu

Kaija Saariaho: Excerpts from From the Grammar of Dreams

Josquin de Prez: Mille Regretz

Micah Behr: Setting

Cristóbal de Morales: Missa de Mille Regretz: Agnus Dei

Pascal Dusapin: Excerpts from Two Walking

Du Yun: Dreams-Bend

Arnold Schoenberg: Verklarte Nacht  (Transfigured Night)

Ana Sokolović: Excerpts from Dawn Always Begins in the Bones

Katharine Petkovski: ABOVE (Canadian premiere)

Philip Glass: Knee Play 5

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