Works by Aitken, Garant, Mather, Morel and Tremblay.

Toronto’s New Music Concerts will present Milestones, a series of works written by Canadian composers that proved seminal for avant-garde music in this country. In addition to their intrinsic value, each of these concert works consititutes a chapter in the history of Canadian music, and each was chosen for that reason.

Gilles Tremblay’s Oralléluiants was originally commissioned by the CBC for the NMC. It was premiered in Toronto in 1975 and soon after performed in Montreal, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ). Ausone by Bruce Mather, also a commission of the NMC, was dedicated to the ensemble’s artistic director Robert Aitken and led by the composer on the occasion of its premiere. In time, Aitken’s Lalità was commissioned by the artistic director of the SMCQ, composer Serge Garant, to accompany his own Offrande III, a work that shares in Aitken’s unusual instrumentation (2 harps, 3 cellos, and 2 percussionists). A final commemorative work is François Morel’s Paysage dépaysé, commissioned by the CBC to celebrate the preeminent Orford String Quartet’s 25th anniversary.

• This concert will be first played February 28th at the Glenn Gould studio of the CBC Broadcast Centre in Toronto before being given in Montréal, for the MNM festival.