The Ladies’ Morning Musical Club recently announced their upcoming 133rd Season. The club has earned a strong international reputation within the classical music community, and a concert in Montreal with the MLMMC is considered a plum job amongst classical musicians. These are the same people that you might see at Koerner Hall in Toronto; New York’s Carnegie Hall and in prestigious European concert halls.

McGill’s venerable Pollack Hall will be undergoing extensive renovations, and for this coming season, the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club concert series will be moving to the Oscar Peterson Concert Hall on the Loyola Campus of Concordia University. The 550-seat hall has excellent acoustics and is ideally suited to the intimate concerts that LMMC audiences appreciate.

Here’s a look at the artists scheduled for the coming 2024 – 2025 season.

Sept. 8 Calidore String Quartet: One of the most exciting ensembles to emerge on the chamber music scene in recent years is the Calidore String Quartet, noted for its fiery brilliance, musicianship, and palpable energy. Formed in 2010 at the prestigious Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles, the Calidore String Quartet has been described as “a miracle of unified thought” (La Presse, Montreal) and as “four highly intelligent, deeply sensitive virtuosos” (Strings magazine). Using an amalgamation of “California” and “doré” (French for “golden”), the ensemble’s name represents a reverence for the diversity of culture and the strong support it received from its home of origin, Los Angeles, California (the “golden state”). The Calidore Quartet, now based in New York City, made international headlines in 2016 as the Grand-Prize winner of the first MPrize International Chamber Music Competition in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the largest prize for chamber music in the world (U.S. $100,000).

Sept. 29 George Li, piano: Born in Boston to Chinese immigrants, George Li began piano lessons at the age of four. Two years later he won first prize in the Massachusetts Music Teachers Association state competition, setting a pattern that would continue with dozens more prizes and awards in coming years. Li made his orchestral debut with the Xiamen Philharmonic at the age of nine, gave his solo recital debut in his native Boston at ten, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at eleven. At twenty he won the Silver Medal at the 2015 International Tchaikovsky Competition. Since then he has established a major international reputation for himself with his effortless, grace, brilliant virtuosity, and poised authority. The Washington Post noted his “staggering technical prowess, a sense of command, and depth of expression.”

Oct. 20 Blake Pouliot, violin: Born in Toronto in 1994, Blake Pouliot studied violin with Marie Berard and Erika Raum, then with the renowned pedagogue Robert Lipsett at the Colburn Conservatory of Music in Los Angeles. Pouliot has established himself as a consummate 21st-century artist. He has performed with all the major Canadian orchestras as well as with many abroad. In 2017 Pouliot toured South America as a soloist with the Orchestra of the Americas performing Piazzolla’s Four Seasons. His many distinguished awards and prizes include the Montreal Symphony’s Manulife Competition in 2016, the Dorothy Delay Award, Grand Prize from the Canadian Federation of Music Festivals, and the Canada Council Michael Measures and Virginia Parker Prizes. He served as Soloist-in-Residence with Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain in the 2020-2021 season. In 2022 Yannick Nézet-Séguin invited Pouliot to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra, with which he played Corigliano’s Red Violin.

We’ll provide more information about the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club

Nov. 10 Benjamin Grosvenor, piano

Dec. 1st Victor Julien-Laferrière, cello

Feb. 2 Karina Gauvin, soprano

Feb. 23 Goldmund Quartett, strings

Mar. 16 Fauré Quartett, piano quartet

Apr. 6 Leonkoro Quartet, strings

Apr. 27 Trio Wanderer, piano trio

Subscription: $350. Students (max. 26 yrs.): $100; Single Ticket: $ 60; Student Single Ticket (max. 26 yrs.): $ 25, Tickets are non-refundable and taxes are included.  For more information about the next season, please visit: www.lmmc.ca or call: 514-932-6796.