Arcady’s fabulous vocalists and players will be performing in a combined garden tour/concert featuring the 2025 Arcady Emerging Artists on Saturday, August 9, 2025.
The show will be preceded by a pre-performance chat with the composer and performers in the amphitheatre at 4:00 PM, after which the musicians will disperse to various points of the gardens to perform Ronald Beckett’s aleatoric work A Woodland Walk.
During the performance, patrons are invited to tour the gardens on their own, remain in the amphitheatre, or have Beckett lead them through the gardens and past the musicians for a unique musical experience. The walk will be followed by an intermission in the amphitheatre highlighted by Arcady’s annual silent auction.
Bidding can take place any time throughout the day and will close at the end of intermission. The second half of the program will be in traditional concert fashion in the amphitheatre with Ronald Beckett directing more of his own works showcasing the featured soloists, a string quartet, two recorders, and Japanese flute.
Featured singers for this musical garden escape include four of Arcady’s brilliant 2025 RBC Emerging Artists. A dedicated portfolio artist, soprano Vivien Illion has produced, directed, and performed in numerous outreach-focused projects with her collective, Pick-Up Opera. Her roles with this collective have included Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Serpina in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, Cherubino in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Anne 1 in Cecilia Livingston’s Singing Only Softly. Anjelique Croteau is a French-Canadian mezzo-soprano based in London, Ontario, originally trained as a stage actor. She has most recently enjoyed the roles of Third Lady in Mozart’s The Magic Flute and Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff, both with Western University, as well as the role of Naomi in Arcady’s own original opera Ruth by Ronald Beckett. Her concert work includes In Pacem as a soloist with the Stratford Concert Choir, performing selections of Haydn.
Singing with “clarity and richness of voice” (Opera Canada), Torontonian tenor Alexander Cappellazzo’s performing career of 32 different roles includes Tamino, Lensky, Acis, Don Ottavio, and Oronte to name a few. Alexander sings with companies across Canada including VOICEBOX: Opera In Concert, Toronto City Opera, Toronto Operetta Theatre, and Opera By Request. In 2022, Alexander founded Apocryphonia and Diapente Vocal Quintet, dedicated to live performances of rare and underperformed classical music such as Renaissance Mexican Christmas music, Azerbaijani opera arias, and Norfolk sailor songs. Finally, praised for his “fine baritone voice” (The Brooklyn Eagle), Austin Larusson’s previous concert appearances include the bass soloist in Handel’s Messiah, the baritone soloist in the Brahms Requiem, and the baritone soloist in the Faure Requiem. Recent appearances include both Ariodate and Elviro in Xerxes with Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, Carretero/Corregidor in El huésped del Sevillano with Toronto Operetta Theatre, and Tales of the Grotesque as Hugo with White Mills TheatreFrank.
