The Toronto Music Garden’s New Music Revolutionary
Curator Gregory Oh is accustomed to pushing the boundaries of musical genres, and this summer, he’s bringing that creative spirit to Harbourfront Centre’s Music Garden.
One might think that Toronto pianist and conductor Gregory Oh is a bit of a chameleon. Wandering through genres of music, location and time, Oh isn’t someone who particularly enjoys being static. Never comfortable staying in one place for too long, Oh likes to shift through musical genres, styles, moods and tastes in a way not unlike that old-world animal — he has a highly developed ability to change.
In fact, Oh has been called a great many things in his decades-long career. As a pianist, conductor, artistic director, curator and music director, he’s been referenced as “avant-garde” and “eccentric” just as much as he’s lauded for being affable and charmingly tangential. By design, Oh is hard to peg down, and his manifold career in the arts, which stretches worldwide, is a direct result of this diverse landscape of character. Maybe don’t tell him that. For Oh, he’s not here or there. He just is. “I’m not trying to be self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating. I know I’m often viewed as experimental, but I also consider myself conservative, too,” he says. “I think you can look at what I’m doing and say it’s not traditional, and there is some truth to that, but I also still love playing Beethoven’s Sonata’s or Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I have a toxic love of nostalgia and at the same time a deep appreciation for creativity and discovering something new.”
With graduate degrees from the University of Toronto, where he completed his studies with Marietta Orlov as the top graduating pianist, and the University of Michigan, where he worked with Martin Katz, Oh’s resume reads like a passport around the world: As a classical pianist, his repertoire spans over five centuries. He has premiered hundreds of works by composers all over the globe and has given recitals throughout North America and Europe. Oh has worked with esteemed American composers Philip Glass and Frederic Rzewaki and appeared at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa to the legendary techno club Berghain in Berlin. He’s performed at the Beijing Modern Music Festival and the Lincoln Centre in New York City and was the ensemble music director at the San Diego Opera, along with working with the Canadian Opera Company. A Dora-nominated music director and conductor, he’s held faculty positions at the Banff Centre for the Arts; he is the artistic director of the highly acclaimed new music group Toca Loca and the harpsichordist in the ensemble The Lollipop People. His pedigree is long (and exhaustive), but not so much for Oh — he still feels like there’s so much more to discover. “I’m constantly driven by finding original ideas that challenge what we think we know about music,” he says. “I’m always trying to work in different fields, try different things, and I encourage everyone to go past what they know and venture into new territory and arenas because you don’t know what you’re going to find.”
Interestingly, Oh’s list is just as multifarious when pressed on creative influences. Citing Canadian visual artist and performer Shary Boyle and her exhibition at Toronto’s Power Plant as having a considerable impact, he also mentions Yoko Ono, Korean multimedia artist Nam June Paik and the theatre as significant points of inspiration. “What I love about the theatre is that it’s a collaborative approach to creation, whereas in classical music, you will generally have a composer who writes something, and they will give it to you, and you will play it. You’re always operating in that kind of hierarchy. In theatre, I love the idea of this collaboration where people can be part of the process of creating something together, and I find that inspiring.”
That sense of fraternity has translated into an exciting new project for Oh. This summer, Oh is chief curator of Harbourfront Centre’s 2022 season of Summer Music in the Garden. Making a much-anticipated return to in-person concerts, he will infuse the series with contemporary works from emerging and celebrated local artists, all with a fresh spin based on his artistic vision. The series, a lineup of 18 free concerts, features new works from Canada, including the Oneida Nation of the Thames, the Philippines, Turkey, India, Australia and Germany. It will also present Nordic artists from the Nordic regions as part of Nordic Bridges, the year-long national initiative highlighting contemporary Nordic arts and culture. It’s an exciting time to welcome live music back to the city of Toronto, which Oh is grateful to be a part of. “The 2022 season encompasses sounds from nearby and afar, comfortingly familiar and thrillingly unexpected,” he says. “I am delighted to present audiences with an eclectic assortment of musical styles from classical and baroque, electronica and folk, to jazz, global fusion, Taiko drumming and Indigenous song and dance. We will hear new artists making their debuts, honour friends who have passed on, tell lots of stories, and then sit down on the grass and listen again.”
Summer Music in the Garden is Oh’s first programming in seven years, and the challenge of creating music programming relevant to today’s audiences proved to be a thrilling venture for him. “I’ve loved the whole process with Harbourfront Centre and creating this season,” he says. “It was important for me to capture in this programming that sense of ‘Oh, this is something I’ve never tried before, and I want to try that.’ I want people to be open to experiencing something new here this summer.”
Taking place most Thursdays and Sundays at the Toronto Music Garden along the waterfront, audiences can expect an eclectic lineup from Canada’s celebrated chamber ensemble, the Penderecki String Quartet, to synth-based grooves of kulintang ensemble, Pantayo, groovy jams from Scandinavian folk musical group Kongero or traditional Oneida Haudenosaunee dance and song with The Ukwehuwe Connection. For Harbourfront Centre, accessibility and inclusivity were an integral factor in bringing these artists in — not only is each performance free to attend, but there is something for everyone’s cultural taste. “I’ve lived all over the world, but Toronto feels like home, and that’s because there is every different culture here,” he says. “That feeling translates into how I wanted people to come to Harbourfront Centre and Summer Music in the Garden. I want everyone to have a chance at seeing something that is home to them, that is part of them. Of course, you can’t represent everyone in every season, but there’s always that chance that when you’re walking by the waterfront, you hear something that feels potently familiar. That’s my hope.”
All Summer Music in the Garden concerts are free and take place at the Toronto Music Garden. To learn more about the full lineup, visit harbourfrontcentre.com/series/summer-music-in-the-garden.
