NEW at PR2 classic: ARC Ensemble from Toronto (September 2014)

PR² classic has pleasure in introducing you to the ARC Ensemble: the Artists of The Royal Conservatory Toronto are committed to unearthing repertoire ignored due to political changes or shifts in musical fashion with a focus on composers who were forced to flee Europe during the 1930s. Its “Music in Exile” series has been presented to huge critical acclaim in New York, London, Tel Aviv, Budapest, and Toronto.

The first two CDs, On the Threshold of Hope and Right Through the Bone (devoted respectively to the music of Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Julius Röntgen) were nominated for Grammy Awards in 2007 and 2008 in the “Best Chamber Music Recording” category. The most recent CD release is dedicated to the chamber music of another émigré, the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim (née Frankenburger) who left Germany in 1933.

The members of the ARC ensemble are all soloists in their own right and senior faculty of The Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, with guest artists drawn from its most exceptional students and graduates. Over the last ten years the Ensemble has become one of Canada’s pre-eminent cultural ambassadors and has performed throughout Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia. The ARC Ensemble’s Artistic Director is Simon Wynberg.

The ARC Ensemble has collaborated with a range of artists: the pianist Leon Fleisher, the novelist Yann Martel, actors Saul Rubinek and R.H.Thompson, and composers R. Murray Schafer, Omar Daniel and Vincent Ho.

With immediate effect, the ARC Ensemble will be represented in all PR matters within Europe by PR² classic.