David fallis
Conductor David Fallis is one of Canada’s leading interpreters of operatic and choral/orchestral repertoire, known especially for his work in the Baroque and Classical periods, and contemporary music. He has conducted across Canada, at the Royal Opera House in Versailles, the Luminato Festival, the Glimmerglass Festival, the Singapore Festival, Festival Vancouver, Houston Grand Opera, the Seoul Arts Centre, Cleveland Opera, Wolftrap Theater, Utah Opera, and in major opera houses in Japan.
As Music Director for Opera Atelier he has helped bring that company onto stages around the world, and for them Mr. Fallis has conducted all the major Mozart operas, all the Monteverdi operas, Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and The Fairy Queen, Handel’s Alcina, Acis and Galatea, La resurrezione and Il pastor fido, Lully’s Armide and Pers´Ee, Charpentier’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Actéon, Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, Rameau’s Pygmalion, and Weber’s Der Freisch¨Utz. He led the company on all five of their triumphant appearances at the Royal Opera House in Versailles. Twice, he led the Opera Atelier forces on tour to Seoul, South Korea conducting the Korean Symphony Orchestra and Camerata Antiqua Seoul, and in major houses in Japan. This season he will conduct their productions of Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice and All is Love. Other recent engagements include Bologne’s L’amant anonyme for Voicebox: Opera in Concert and The Bright Divide for Soundstreams.
Following his success in conducting the world premiere of R. Murray Schafer’s The Children’s Crusade at the 2009 Luminato Festival in Toronto, he was asked to conduct one of Schafer’s most ambitious works of music theatre, Apocalypsis, to great acclaim at the 2015 Festival. The production led to the world premiere recording of this mammoth undertaking on the Analekta label. For the 2019 Luminato Festival, he led the world premiere of Maada’ookii Songlines by Cris Derksen, featuring over 200 singers and an Indigenous ensemble.
On the symphonic stage, in 2019 Mr. Fallis made his debut with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducting Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Fauré’s Requiem, and a world premiere by Andrew Balfour, all with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. He has conducted Orchestra London (Mozart arias and Haydn symphonies), the Windsor Symphony (Handel’s Messiah, C.P.E. Bach cello concertos), Symphony Nova Scotia (the Mozart REQUIEM), Symphony New Brunswick (Handel’s Water Music) and the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra in a programme of Christmas Baroque works with choir and orchestra.
He has led critically acclaimed productions for Houston Grand Opera (Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Orfeo), Cleveland Opera (Handel’s Giulio Cesare and Poppea), Wolftrap Theater (Poppea), and he made his debut at Utah Opera in James Robinson’s production of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. He has led the Toronto Consort in opera-in-concert performances of Cavalli’s La Calisto, Giasone, Gli amori d'Apollo e di Dafne, Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo and all three Monteverdi operas.
From 2018-2020 he was Interim Conductor and Artistic Adviser for the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, leading them throughout their 125th Anniversary Season. Mr. Fallis directs Soundstreams Choir 21, a vocal ensemble specializing in contemporary choral music, which has performed for Soundstreams Canada; for the Toronto International Film Festival during the inaugural film series at the Bell Lightbox; for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in their “New Creations Festival”; for the Art of Time Ensemble; and for Continuum Contemporary Music. In 2019, for Soundstreams and Signal Theatre, he conducted PIMOOTEWIN by Melissa Hui and Tomson Highway, the world’s first opera in Cree, and Gallabartnit by Britta Bystrom and Rawdna Eira, the world’s first opera in Sami. He has conducted world premieres by many other leading Canadian composers, including James Rolfe, Christopher Butterfield, Christos Hatzis, Andrew Balfour and Andrew Ager.
From 1990-2018 he was Artistic Director of the Toronto Consort, a renowned chamber group specializing in the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. With the ensemble, he toured extensively in Europe and Canada and led the group for their many recordings on Marquis Classics, Dorian and SRI. He led the group in many acclaimed performances, including Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, Praetorius’ Christmas Vespers, a fully-staged performances of the medieval masterpiece, The Play of Daniel, and the world music collaboration, The Marco Polo Project.
Mr. Fallis has also worked in film and television. He led the Toronto Consort in music for Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, and was Historical Music Producer for Showtime’s acclaimed series The Tudors, featuring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sam Neill and Peter O’Toole, and The Borgias, starring Jeremy Irons.
Formerly the conductor of the Toronto Chamber Choir, Fallis led the world premiere of Christos Hatzis’ DE ANGELIS, as well as many performances of music by J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart and Purcell. In another direction, Mr. Fallis guest conducted the Elmer Iseler Singers on tour in the U.S.A. in a programme of the Bach motets and led the famous choral ensemble in a performance of the Missa Flamenca by the flamenco guitar master Paco Peña.
December 2023
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““Recreating the tremulous quality of opera on an historical knife edge, conductor David Fallis, in partnership with a brilliant 16-player ensemble courtesy Tafelmusik, strikes to the very core of genius, summoning all the colour and texture of Monteverdi’s daring score.” [Opera Atelier, The Return of Ulysses].”
