A new, free, Soundstreams TD Encounters Series event-MARK ROTHKO & MUSIC-presented in collaboration with Koffler Arts, will take place on October 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Holy Blossom Temple (1950 Bathurst St. Toronto ON M5P 3K9) in the Mishkan Room. 

This special event is centred around music inspired by iconic American painter Mark Rothko, and will include a riveting discussion on Rothko and music moderated by Koffler Arts General Director Matthew Jocelyn, with Lawrence Cherney, Joyce Zemans (art historian and Senior Scholar and University Professor Emerita, York University, Tim Albery (stage director of The Bright Divide), and composer Cecilia Livingston. 

A live performance will include excerpts from Morton Feldman’s masterwork Rothko Chapel, which premiered at the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas in 1972, and Cecilia Livingston’s mark, a newly commissioned companion work to the Feldman, to be premiered by Soundstreams during The Bright Divide at the new TD Music Hall on November 10, and 11, 2023. Excerpts will be performed on October 30 by Steven Dann (viola), Gregory Oh  (piano), and Alex Samaras  (voice).

Images of Rothko paintings, both from the Chapel and from his earlier periods, will be projected during the event. There will also be an audience Q&A.