About this Event
Join us for a concert celebrating the launch of Cristina Prats Costa's new album!
About the Artists
Praised by The Strad magazine as “a leader playing with uncommon sensitivity,” Spanish violinist Cristina Prats Costa is a passionate and versatile baroque violinist dedicated to forging meaningful musical connections with both her colleagues and audiences. She approaches music as a profoundly human art —one of empathy, storytelling, and shared emotion. Cristina’s career spans renowned ensembles across Europe and North America, including The English Concert, Il Pomo d’Oro, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, L’Harmonie des saisons, Smithsonian Orchestra, Mercury Baroque, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Arcangelo, Finnish Baroque Orchestra and Toronto Consort, among others. She is known for her collaborative spirit and dynamic artistry as a performer and recording artist in historically informed performance.
She has received numerous accolades, including the Manhattan International Music Competition 2025 – Baroque Music Prize and Special Award, the Christopher Hogwood Award, the Excellence Award, and the Shalom Ben-Uri Doctorate Recital Prize from the University of Toronto. She was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2019, in recognition of her professional achievements.
A committed chamber musician, Cristina is co-founder and first violinist of the award-winning Alauda Quartet. The ensemble received the Chamber Music Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music, the Park Lane Group Award, and the Making Music Emerging Artist Award (UK). Their critically acclaimed debut album on Brilliant Classics features the complete string quartets of Italian composer Roffredo Caetani, produced with the support of the Caetani Foundation.
Her studies took her through Europe’s and North America’s most distinguished music institutions: the Conservatorio Superior de Música (Barcelona), Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Royal Academy of Music (London), Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien (Hannover), Royal Conservatory The Hague (Netherlands), and most recently, The Juilliard School (New York), where she earned her Master’s degree in Historically Informed Performance with honours in 2024.
Cristina brings intellectual depth, stylistic insight, and emotional clarity to every performance — committed to continually exploring and expanding the language of early music today.
When she’s not on stage or in rehearsal, Cristina can often be found on a mission to discover the best ice cream spots in town — a sweet ritual that follows her from city to city. You can follow her ice cream around the world page.
Lucas Harris began his musical life playing equal amounts of jazz and classical guitar as a teen in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. He discovered the lute during his undergraduate studies at Pomona College, where he graduated summa cum laude. He then studied early music in Italy at the Civica scuola di musica di Milano (as a scholar of the Marco Fodella Foundation), then in Germany at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. After several years in New York City, Lucas moved to Toronto in 2004, becoming a Canadian citizen in 2017. In Toronto he has been the regular lutenist for the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra for more than two decades, and performs with many other ensembles in the USA and Canada including the Smithsonian Chamber Players and the Helicon Foundation (see the “Playing” page for more details). He is also a founding member of the Toronto Continuo Collective, the Vesuvius Ensemble. and the Lute Legends Ensemble.
Joe Phillips is one of Canada’s most versatile double bassists. He performs with Toronto’s genre-defying Art of Time Ensemble, reimagines folk traditions learned from field recordings with banjoist Jayme Stone’s Folklife, struts his stuff with Payadora Tango Ensemble, performs annually at Sweetwater Music Weekend with some of the best chamber musicians in the world, and plays principal bass in the London Symphonia. Equally at home in a concert hall or at a folk festival, Joe has appeared as guest principal bass with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra, has performed at the Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, the Winnipeg Folk Festival, and toured Canada with chamber music supergroup, Octagon.
Naghmeh Farahmand is a Persian percussionist who comes from a musical family. She is the daughter of one of the leading percussion masters of Iran, Mahmoud Farahmand. Naghmeh grew up surrounded by music in a full house of drums.
Naghmeh showed great interest in rhythms during her childhood and started playing the tonbak when she was 6. While learning the rhythmic patterns of Persian traditional music under the supervision of her father, she was encouraged to learn a melodic instrument to gain insight into the melodic aspect of music as this would make her a better accompanist. So she started playing the santoor under the guidance of Faramarz Payvar and Pashang Kamkar. Besides learning traditional music, Naghmeh found the daf to be very powerful and spiritual and began learning Sufi and Kurdish rhythms on the daf from Bijan Kamkar and Masoud Habibi.
Naghmeh has performed in many well known Iranian traditional bands in Iran and festivals around the world in places such as Germany, Switzerland, Japan (Min On Festival), France (La fete de la music), Italy, Kuwait (Women festival), Austria, and London. She was honored to perform with Hassan Nahid, Iranian master of the ney and Hengameh Akhavan, a famous singer of traditional music for years.
Accessibility
St. Thomas's is not (yet) an accessible venue unfortunately. If you have accessibility needs, please email in advance: [email protected].
Ticketing Information
Since this is a pay-what-you-wish event (suggested: $40 regular; $20 students), the Eventbrite order form is set to Donation rather that Ticket. (Otherwise there would be a set ticket price.) Unfortunately, within the Donation option, there is no way to indicate a number of people attending. If ordering/donating on behalf of more than one person, simply enter the amount of the donation (pay what you wish) and then email [email protected] to let us know how many are in your party and their names. Please note that we do not provide tax receipts despite the "Donation" nomenclature in Eventbrite. Revenue supports the artists and music education programs at St. Thomas's.
Location
The historic St. Thomas's Anglican Church is one block south of Bloor and one block west of St. George TTC station, at 383 Huron Street. www.stthomas.on.ca.
There is no parking lot at the church.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Saint Thomas's Church, 383 Huron Street, Toronto, Canada
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