Barrett Principal Education Conductor and Community Ambassador Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser conducting the TSO at the 2023 Free Community Concert.Allan Cabral/Toronto Symphony Orchestra
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra will announce its biggest-ever philanthropic pledge Saturday, with the Barrett Family Foundation offering $15-million over 15 years for the orchestra’s community engagement and education programming.
Chief executive officer Mark Williams said that the gift will help the orchestra’s efforts to expand its reach beyond traditional classical-music fans in the Greater Toronto Area – such as through educational concerts about reckoning with high-pressure moments in complex performances, and in reaching diasporic communities by performing genres such as reggae and bhangra.
“We want to make classical music at the very highest level – that’s the backbone of what we do – but we need to be constantly seeking ways to be relevant to our communities,” Williams said in a backstage interview at Roy Thomson Hall this week, just before its 2024-25 season launched.
The Barrett Family Foundation was founded by Bob Barrett, CEO of the packaging company Polytainers, and his wife and daughters in 2013. The family has supported the TSO for decades, particularly through scholarships for its youth orchestra, and has focused in recent years on community engagement and education.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser, the host of CBC Radio’s Centre Stage, holds a conductor position with the TSO focusing on these initiatives, which bears the Barrett family name.
Daniel Bartholomew-Poyser holds a conductor position with the TSO focusing on these initiatives, which bears the Barrett family name.Allan Cabral/Toronto Symphony Orchestra
The TSO’s community programming “is about breadth,” Bartholomew-Poyser said. “People who love reggae also love Mozart. People who like calypso music also might love bhangra, and also might love minimalism. So let’s serve a bunch of different communities.”
It is uncommon for gifts to the arts of this magnitude to focus on programming rather than capital projects such as buildings or major halls, which often bear the donor’s name in perpetuity.
“It takes very special philanthropists to think this way,” Williams said. “The Barrett Family Foundation is focused on people, their experience, and helping people have opportunities to grow, learn, become better people.”
Alister Mathieson, the foundation’s executive director, said that in an era when school music programs often face budget cuts, such a donation would help stimulate more young people to embrace and study music. “We wanted to formalize the arrangement with TSO with a long-term commitment so they could take the educational component of music to the community on a far broader scale,” he said by phone.
The foundation’s donation comes a year after the estate of H. Thomas and Mary Beck donated $14.7-million to the TSO in what, at that point, was the largest gift in the orchestra’s history.
The gift will be announced at the orchestra’s season-launching open house on Saturday.
Students watch a school concert performance of Bhangra and Beyond at Roy Thomson Hall.Allan Cabral/Toronto Symphony Orchestra