Last year at this time, Ida and I were playing a show to celebrate our OPUS nomination, and finding out we were also nominated for a JUNO for Instrumental Album of the year. Twelve months later, Toninato/Thiessen is going strong.

We started the year at Open Waters Festival in Halifax, hosted by the Halifax duo subSet (Steven Naylor and Jeff Reilly) for a show called subSet 2+2. We had a great time developing our set with these skilled musicians. We also did an artist talk, as a duo, for composition students and any musicians from the festival who wanted to hear about our approach to our instruments and the vocabulary we’ve developed together. There was a great gang there from all over Canada and so many excellent shows. Here’s a photo of our set taken by Amy Brandon:

Our next stop was at the NUMUS New Music Series at the historic Walper Hotel in Kitchener-Waterloo. A warm welcome and attentive audience set the stage for an enjoyable exploratory set for us. Thanks, Kathryn Ladano and NUMUS!

We were also able to book a last-minute spot in Toronto at the new SPEAK Music Be Kind Festival at the Tranzac. With their mandates of kindness and a gender-balanced line-up (apparently for the first time in Canada . . . what!), we were happy to be on board, and to make it on time despite the blizzard. Here’s a short video clip from Leslie Ting:

New projects and adventures from Toninato/Thiessen in the year to come!