Photo: Anita Zvonar

Ashiq Aziz, “young firecracker” (Toronto Star), praised for his “innate musicality” (Globe and Mail) and ability to “enthral audiences” (Toronto Star), is a conductor and harpsichordist committed to producing thought-provoking, historically informed performances of music from the Baroque and Classical periods.

He is the founder and artistic director of Toronto’s Classical Music Consort, and his work as a guest director has taken him to the US, UK, and Sweden. Recent engagements with the CMC have included a sold-out performance of Handel’s Messiah in December 2008, a complete cycle of Haydn’s twelve London Symphonies over four concerts as part of its year-long Haydn bicentenary celebrations in 2009, and a critically-acclaimed production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas last August, as part of its Underground/Opera series of projects in collaboration with the experimental multi-disciplinary company Opera Erratica and its director Patrick Young. Mr. Aziz has served as assistant to Laurence Cummings for the London Handel Festival’s Production of Handel’s Poro (2007), for the English National opera’s production of Monteverdi’s Coronation of Poppea (2007), as well as assistant to David Fallis for Opera Atelier’s production of the same (2009). Future projects include a performance of Handel’s rarely performed Roman oratorio, La Resurrezione, with the CMC in May, and an original Underground/Opera production entitled Orlando/Lunaire, in August. Educated at Upper Canada College, the University of Toronto, and the Royal College of Music, London, he has studied period performance direction with Andrew Parrott, Laurence Cummings, and Adrian Butterfield, conducting with Raffi Armenian, Peter Stark, Ivars Taurins, and Paul Spicer, and harpsichord with Terry Charlston and Charlotte Nediger. For more information about Ashiq Aziz, please visit www.classicalmusicconsort.org.