Koerner Hall draws Yo-Yo Ma

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Before he even arrived in Toronto to take the job, the Royal Conservatory of Music's executive director of performing arts, Mervon Mehta, said he was "probably never going to book Yo-Yo Ma" at the institution's brand-new concert home, Koerner Hall. After all, Ma has more than twice as many seats at his disposal at Roy Thomson Hall.

But Mehta never said the superstar cellist wouldn't come to him.

The RCM's 2010-11 season will kick off in October with a recital by Ma, accompanied by pianist Kathryn Stott, a flashy debut to the second season in Koerner Hall. The reason? Ma heard several artists raving about their experiences in the new hall and wanted to take it for a spin.

"[Ma's representatives]called me and said, 'Would you consider bringing Yo-Yo?' " Mehta said. "He wanted to play the hall, so he's playing the hall. Next time, he'll go back to Roy Thomson, I'm sure."

It's a testament to the glowing reviews Koerner Hall has garnered from artists and audiences alike since opening last fall. The first season, which is only now starting to wind down, was cobbled together by a newly arrived Mehta and a skeleton staff, but the hall drew strong audiences and appears to have found its niche as a mid-size concert venue (about 1,100 seats) in downtown Toronto.

"We've done good planning with good people and had some good luck," Mehta said of the first campaign. "We set the bar pretty high, I think. We exceeded our expectations on almost every level."

The new season, announced yesterday, has a more definite curatorial shape while genres that didn't sell, such as bluegrass and experimental contemporary music, have been scaled back. Ticket prices and the rush-seating program will remain unchanged.

The headline series among dozens of concerts will be "Aspects of Oscar," a series of five concerts paying tribute to late Canadian jazz legend Oscar Peterson. Each concert focuses on one aspect of his career - songbooks, solos, trios, blues and swing. Peterson's wife, Kelly, helped to program it, and "all the people that are playing on it are people that meant something to him, that played with him, were mentored by him, were favourites of his," Mehta said.

Highlights of the vocal series include a recital by recent Juno Award-winning soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, who will dart over on an off-night while performing with the Canadian Opera Company, and an evening with Broadway star Barbara Cook.

The piano and string lineups include the likes of Simone Dinnerstein and Leila Josefowicz.

The program includes many artists who have rarely, if ever, played Toronto. South African jazz trumpet virtuoso Hugh Masekela is a major act in the season's expanded African-themed programming and Latin Grammy Award nominee Concha Buika, who hails from Mallorca, Spain, will perform coplas, or torch songs. Savion Glover, thought by many to be the world's best tap dancer, is also on the bill.

The landmark speaker in this year's series of lectures and master classes will be the Aga Khan, who will deliver the LaFontaine-Baldwin Lecture in October, presented by the Institute for Canadian Citizenship. Famed neuroscientist Daniel Levitin presents "Beethoven and Your Brain," in which he will map the reactions to Beethoven's Fifth Symphony in the brains of the conductor, musicians and audience.

Finally, the RCM is showcasing its homegrown talent more widely, doubling the number of concerts by the Royal Conservatory Orchestra to six, including a Nuit Blanche offering by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer.