Offcentre Music

Fourteen years ago, we founded Off Centre Music Salon to create a holistic musical and artistic experience for our performers and our audience – a chance to play and hear vocal, chamber and solo repertoire in an atmosphere that evokes a 19th century European salon. The intimacy and superb acoustics of the CBC's Glenn Gould Studio on a Sunday afternoon provides the ideal setting for realizing our goal of combining music with her sister arts, as was done in the age of Schubert. As artistic directors, programming every Off Centre season is its own journey of discovery!

For the past 13 years we have successfully combined traditional repertoire with rarely performed musical, poetic, literary and visual masterpieces to create the perfect innovative blend. This season is no different: the Off Centre “14th Edition World Tour” begins in our favorite city for our inaugural Toronto Salon which will offer a glimpse of our metropolis through music written by Torontonians from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. Schubert's Winterreise accompanies our journey to Vienna, and we will stroll through Paris to the sounds of Rossini's rarely performed Petite Messe Solennelle before reaching Russia via Hungary for some musical goulash, arriving ultimately in our most Romantic programme of the season, with one foot in Spain and the other in Germany.

Our guest artists include internationally acclaimed musicians performing alongside rising stars on the Canadian scene. Distinguished Canadian critics, filmmakers, and actors from Soulpepper Theatre provide dramatic performances that complement our musical offerings. Stuart Hamilton, the renowned CBC opera Quizmaster, offers his own witty and erudite narrative to introduce our concerts and their themes. Enter a world where a concert is a feast for all your senses. Engage in a musical experience that will transport you to an era when music was a form of intimate conversation as well as entertainment. Join us for our 2008-2009 season and become a member of the Off Centre Music Salon's extended family!

Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin
Founders and Artistic Directors