‘Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is.’ Louis Armstrong
Welcome to the internet home of North Wind Concerts, a Toronto-based not-for-profit corporation created to celebrate and encourage the enjoyment of chamber music of many kinds, and with a soft focus on music for wind instruments.
NWC presents performances and educational events for the general public. These include concerts of early, Classical and contemporary chamber music and the Encircling the World series, which brings together musicians of different backgrounds who play similar instruments for an afternoon or evening of musical discovery, performance, Q&A with the audience, and improvisation. NWC also presents musical workshops, and school shows.
About
North Wind Concerts is a Toronto-based charitable association created to celebrate and encourage the enjoyment of chamber music of many kinds, and with a soft focus on music for wind instruments. We present performances and educational events for the general public, and also for school and health care facilities, bringing music to those whose circumstances reduce their access to live music of this kind.
Founded by Artistic Directors Alison Melville and Colin Savage, North Wind Concerts presents an eclectic variety of musical events, often but not exclusively on period instruments. We also seek to explore music from diverse traditions, collaborating with colleagues from Canada’s First Nations and others from around the world who are now based in Toronto.
Our programming also seeks to combine the traditional and the unfamiliar in creative ways, and to develop connections between musicians of differing ages, levels of musical experience, and backgrounds, offering opportunities for growth and collaboration within the artistic community.
Please see our ‘Next Up’ page for information and updates on our future activities. If you’d like to receive e-mail notices about upcoming events, write to us at northwindconcerts@gmail.com and ask us to add your e-address. We do not trade, sell or share our e-mailing list.
North Wind Concerts is a registered charitable organization (Reg. No. 88993 1044 RR001). Donations in support of our activities are gratefully received and receipted.
All the header photographs on this site were taken in Massasauga Provincial Park, Ontario, by Colin Savage.
‘Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.’ Confucius
Our History; Past Events
Until February 2018, North Wind Concerts was known as Baroque Music Beside the Grange. BMBG ran an eclectic, well-attended annual subscription series of concerts from 1984 to 2006 at the Church of St. George the Martyr in downtown Toronto. Our performers were mostly local professional musicians, with occasional guests; we were supported by municipal and provincial levels of government, occasionally by the Italian Cultural Institute, Government of Spain, Goethe Institute and others, and had a strong base of private supporters for whom we were thoroughly grateful!
Between 2006 and 2017 BMBG presented occasional concerts featuring local and guest musicians, dancers and speakers, independently or in collaboration with other organizations such as the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto Early Music Centre and others. Recent events included a sold-out solo recital and master class by internationally renowned baroque flutist Barthold Kuijken (February 2017), and a recital featuring Spanish harpsichordist Luisa Morales and traditional dancer Cristóbal Salvador (November 2014). Morales and Salvador also gave further concerts, lectures and master classes at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Toronto and Ryerson University, arranged by BMBG. We also assisted other presenters and independent artists with concert promotion and publicity.
For info on past events, over over ‘Our History; Past Events’ in the menu and click on the event titles.
‘Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.’ Maya Angelou
