The Season of Hope

Looking for a new way to listen to classical music?

Join Off Centre for salon-style concerts in the heart of Toronto! From a six-handed Strauss polka on the piano, to Mozart’s spell-binding concert arias, and sounds that take you from 1920’s Paris to Ukraine - Off Centre’s 29th season - is one you won't want to miss!

Founders and Artistic Directors, Boris Zarankin and Inna Perkis

2024-2025 Season Sponsor Horatio Kemeny

October 27, 2024

Ages & Stages

To kick off our season, we are thrilled to celebrate an important “family” reunion: acclaimed LA-based, Canadian pianist Micah Yui joins us at Off Centre for the first time in almost a decade, but her relationship to our family goes all the way back to 1979, when she first began her studies with our very own Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin. Micah is joined by her 17-year-old daughter, cellist Mira Kardan, a prodigious young talent who has just relocated to Toronto to study at the Glenn Gould School. We’re also reuniting the shy, young Schubert with his idol Beethoven in a program that will feature the “youngster’s” Arpeggione Sonata for cello and piano and the master’s piano Bagatelles, op. 126. And not to worry: the solemnity of these occasions will be accompanied by just the right dose of fun – how does one piano, six hands sound??

Featuring:
Sheila Jaffé, violin; Mira Kardan, cello; Andrea Ludwig, mezzo soprano (OCMS Artist-in-Residence); Inna Perkis, piano; Ernesto Ramirez, tenor; Micah Yui, piano; Boris Zarankin piano;

Highlights:
Shostakovich: Piano Trio, op. 67
Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano, L. 135
Shostakovich: from Jewish Folk Poetry, op. 79
J. Strauss: Polka-Pizzicato & Tritsch-Tratsch Polka, for piano six hands
Schubert: Lieder

December 1, 2024

Mozart’s Formula: Smart-aging?

Have you heard of the Mozart effect? Popular science has long made claims that listening to Mozart in early childhood has a beneficial effect on our mental development. Is it true? Who knows… perhaps? But we have a somewhat Off Centre follow-up to that question: what about growing old with Mozart’s music? We’re no scientists, of course, but let us hypothesize and experience the smart-aging effects of Mozart’s music in action, in a program that will feature Mozart’s “The Hunt” String Quartet, K. 458, his D major Sonata for four hands, K. 123a, his spell-binding concert arias and operatic duets, and his Piano Quartet, K. 478.

Featuring:
Jonathan Crow, violin; Sheila Jaffé, violin; Elina Kelebeev, piano; Andrea Ludwig, mezzo soprano (OCMS Artist-in-Residence); Rémi Pelletier, viola; Inna Perkis, piano; Giles Tomkins, bass-baritone; Boris Zarankin, piano; Winona Zelenka, cello

Highlights:
Mozart: “The Hunt” String Quartet, K. 458, Piano Quartet, K. 478, Sonata for Piano four hands K. 123a, concert arias

March 16, 2025

When Paris Sizzled: The Fabulous 1920s!

Come meet us at Le boeuf sur le toit for an effervescent, bubbly-fueled, bohemian night (or afternoon!) out… C’est les années folles à Paris, friends – the crazy years in Paris –and we’ll be rubbing shoulders with the likes of Milhaud and his Les Six pals, Picasso, Diaghilev, Satie, Hemingway, Coco Chanel, Cole Porter and Josephine Baker, just to name a few of the regulars who once played, sang, danced and reveled into the wee hours at this celebrated cabaret-bar. Peek around the corner, and you just might catch a glimpse of our beloved Ravel, lamenting his
5-time-losing-streak at the Prix de Rome competition… Our visit to this deliciously dizzying world will feature his loss-defying-brilliance as heard in the Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano, the Ma mère l’Oye suite for four hands, the brilliant Jeux d’eau, and his Histoires naturelles song-cycle.

Featuring:
Marie Bérard, violin; Elina Kelebeev, piano; Andrea Ludwig, mezzo soprano (OCMS Artist-in-Residence); Maeve Palmer, soprano; Inna Perkis, piano; Boris Zarankin, piano

Highlights:
Selected mélodies by Debussy, Poulenc, Milhaud, Satie, and Ravel Sonata for violin and piano

June 8, 2025

Ukrainian Salon: Against all hope, we hope

Ukrainian culture is as rich and precious as the black Ukrainian soil that earned the country its nickname as “the breadbasket of Europe.” As Russia redraws borders, indiscriminately bombing civilians, schools and hospitals and doing everything in its power to make Ukrainian resilience impossible, we turn to that precious culture. “Sing my songs where evil holds its sway,” wrote Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka and that is exactly what we plan to do, weaving a program that will unite the music of Western and Eastern Ukraine, including Canadian premieres of works by Valentin Bibik, Leonid Desyatnikov, Vladimir Nalyvaiko as well as Ukrainian art and folk songs.

Featuring:
Colin Ainsworth, tenor; Igor Gefter, cello; Elina Kelebeev, piano; Bénédicte Lauzière, cello; Andrea Ludwig, mezzo soprano (OCMS Artist-in-Residence); Rémi Pelletier, viola; Inna Perkis, piano; Mark Skazinetsky, violin; Boris Zarankin, piano; Ilana Zarankin, soprano

Highlights:
Bibik: String Quartet no. 5, and Akvareli, for soprano and piano
Desyatnikov: Five Jewish Songs, for soprano and String Quartet, and selections from Songs of Bukovina, for piano
Nalyvaiko: Toccata and 4 o’clock in the morning, for piano

2024-2025 Season Sponsor Horatio Kemeny

All concerts start at 3pm,
at Jeanne Lamon Hall,
Trinity-St. Paul's Centre.
427 Bloor Street West, Toronto.