Don’t let the casual look on the face of my friend to the left fool you; the Plaza Flamingo establishment is one of the hottest tickets in downtown Toronto.  It’s not exactly a nightclub, a dance hall or a restaurant, but it has elements of all three. 

Rather than forcing you to walk from place to place in order to get the full entertainment that you want your evening to have, the Plaza Flamingo provides it all.  Here’s just a small overview of the different things that you can do and have done when you dine at the Plaza Flamingo.

Dining

Dinner at the Plaza Flamingo is definitely something to be desired and cherished.  Everything that you order is cooked in the Latin American style.  Dishes from all over South America are present on the restaurant menu, here are just some samples to allow you to whet your appetite.

Appetizers: Jumbo shrimp, baked mushrooms stuffed with crabmeat and steamed ocean mussels are just three of the dishes that you can choose from.

Grilled Meats: In this department, two of the highlights are the special Argentinean dish (combination of beef, chicken and sausage) and a fantastic grilled dish featuring both steak and shrimp.

There are also specialty items, seafood sensations, desserts, pastas and cocktails readily available for you to partake of when you dine at the Plaza Flamingo.  Additionally, if lunch is your meal, then you can actually choose to opt for the $7.95 lunch buffet and get a chance to try a bit of everything!

Dancing

Dining is not the only thing that you can do at Plaza Flamingo.  You can also incorporate dancing into your evening, either by actually doing it yourself or by watching others do it.

Plaza Flamingo offers many different dance shows for you to show up for and most of these shows of course feature Flamenco dancing.  One of the most beautiful forms of dancing in the world, it is definitely a sight to behold and you can see it right in the heart of downtown Toronto.

Of course, if just watching isn’t really your thing, why not get up on the dance floor and actually participate?  You and a partner can jive along to music either in a swing or a Latin style depending on the night and if you want to go even further then you can actually get dance lessons at Plaza Flamingo and be involved in one of the shows they give for the people that are eating at the restaurant.  The choice is yours, but all of the choices are extremely fun!

General Information

Plaza Flamingo is located at 423 College Street, which happens to be on College just east of Bathurst. 

The closest subway station is the Spadina subway station on the Bloor subway line.  Getting off at this station requires a walk down Spadina to College and then west on College until you get to 423.

Alternatively, you can get off at the Queen’s Park subway station on the University subway line.  Getting off at this station requires walking west on College until you get to 423 or taking the 506 Streetcar west a few stops.  If you opt for the latter option, make sure you get a transfer inside the station before you leave!

More information regarding Plaza Flamingo can be found by calling (416) 603-8884.

Photo Credit: Flickr

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, published under the GNUFDL

One of the things that continue to make Toronto an excellent place to visit is the city’s excellent musical tradition.  There are literally dozens of different musical groups that perform around the city all the time and while I don’t have the time to cover all of them here on The Toronto Traveler, I do try to get to the ones that I think will be of particular interest to you the readers.  This one is the Windermere String Quartet which happens to be just one of the many different smaller musical groups located within the City of Toronto.

Details

Event:Windermere String Quartet Performance
Date: March 16, 2008
Time: 3 PM to 5 PM
Cost: <$20
Location:St. Olave’s Anglican Church (MAP)
Closest Subway Station:Jane Subway Station on the Bloor Subway Line
More Information: Phone 416-769-7054

Venue

St. Olave’s Anglican Church is just one of many beautiful religious institutions located within Toronto as the city itself is home to churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and various other religious institutions.  There are few cities in the world that possess a larger religious diversity than Toronto which is why more established churches like the Anglican Church can co-exist harmoniously with other Christian denominations as well as other completely different religions.  St. Olave’s, like many of the other religious buildings in the city, is run largely by a volunteer taskforce which is responsible for putting together a number of the events that take place within the building.  Windermere Quarter performances are regular occurrences at the church, so even if you miss this one and are in town later on in the year, you still might be able to find a performance to attend.

Event

The event itself has a distinctly religious setting to it, with the music being the “Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross” by Haydn as well as readings related to the work accompanying it.  However, the Windermere String Quartet utilizes instruments from that period to create startlingly good recreations of the actual performances during the time the work was first created and for that reason alone the performance is worth attending even if you’re not an Anglican.  From personal experience I can say that the smaller groups in the city tend to have a great sound quality and I’ve personally been to recitals and concerts in many religious settings of which I was not a part and still enjoyed myself greatly.  If you want to hear a good period recital, then the Windermere String Quartet is definitely the group for you.

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Photo Credit: Pink Martini by Ryan Harveyon Flickr

Once referred to by The New Yorker as being “Beautiful and sophisticated,” the Pink Martini band has been touring all around North America with their interesting blend of musical styles and part of that tour includes a stop in Toronto at Massey Hall.  Pink Martini can be lovingly called an ultra-chic orchestra and they can play everything from a Cuban rumba all the way to a Hollywood musical and everything in between as well.  Listening to them is always a good time.

Details

Event: Pink Martini at Massey Hall
Cost: $30 – $50
Date: March 15, 2008
Time: 8 PM
Location: Massey Hall (MAP)
Closest Subway Station: Queen Subway Station on the Yonge Subway Line
More Information: Phone 416-593-4822 or visit http://www.masseyhall.com

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, published under the GNUFDL

Looking for a good place in Toronto to find some music being played?  Well, here are some venues in Toronto that are dedicated solely to music or alternatively that host music events on a fairly regular basis:

1) The Air Canada Centre
2) Exhibition Place
3) The Four Seasons Centre
4) The Harbourfront Centre
5) The Sony Centre for the Arts
6) Massey Hall
7) The Phoenix Concert Theatre
The Rogers Centre
9) Roy Thomson Hall
10) The Toronto Centre for the Arts

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Photo Credit: Massey Hall by hobvias sudoneighm on Flickr

Many people have undoubtedly heard of Finger Eleven already, especially if you happen to be into the alternative rock genre of music.  Even if you’re not and you’re looking to expand your horizons a bit, the musical performance of Finger Eleven that’s coming up tomorrow is a pretty good way to do that.  They’re an all-Canadian band as well, which perhaps adds to the flavour of the performance for people that are viewing it from out of country.

Details

Event: Finger Eleven at Massey Hall
Date: March 8, 2008
Time: 8 PM
Cost: ~$35
Location: Massey Hall, 178 Victoria Street (MAP)
Nearest Subway Station:Queen Subway Station on the Yonge Subway Line
More Information: Phone 416-872-4255 or visit http://www.masseyhall.com

Venue

Massey Hall is perhaps the second most recognized musical venue in all of Toronto.  After Roy Thomson Hall, Massey Hall is the next most desirable location not just for musical events, but also for stage productions as well as lecture talks on occasion and it is this conglomerate of potential events that continues to make Massey Hall not just a premier musical venue, but also a premier general venue in the city of Toronto.  It also happens to be located in downtown Toronto right near all of the other big venues and this makes an event at Massey Hall quite easy to combine with other tourist events in the city and because of that reason Massey Hall concerts tend to be on the list of potential events for most tourists visiting the city of Toronto.

Event

As I previously stated, Finger Eleven got their start in Canada; in Burlington, Ontario to be exact.  Burlington’s not too far from Toronto and like many of the other great Canadian bands, Finger Eleven started out as a group of high school students that decided to get together and create a band.  That was a decade ago and since that time Finger Eleven has been all over the place in touring and has seen their music climb the charts at an almost meteoric rate.  They now have fans not only in Canada, but also in North America and even some places overseas.  They’re coming back to Toronto for another concert fresh off a successful appearance on the Jay Leno show and while tickets are still available for the event, you might want to get yours right now rather than wait until you get to the door.

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

One of the reasons that Toronto is such a great place to visit is that there are a lot of events that go on within the city that are free to attend.  Another reason that Toronto is such a great place to visit is that the culture of the city gives way to musical, artistic and theatrical presentations of great works that have a little flavour of the city in them as well.  These two things combine in the Noon Hour Choir event which will commemorate its 11th annual free recital at Roy Thomson Hall on Thursday.

Details

Event: 11th Annual FREE Noon Hour Choir & Bach Children’s Chorus
Cost: Free
Date: February 28, 2008 @ 12 PM
Location: Roy Thomson Hall (map)
Closest Subway Station: St. Andrew Station on the University Subway Line
More Info: Call 416-872-4255 or e-mail reachus@rth-mh.com

Venue

If you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, chances are that you’ve seen Roy Thomson Hall mentioned before.  It is a venue that represents one of the major cultural attractions of the city and there are tourists that will visit the hall simply to get a tour of the place.  Along with Massey Hall, Roy Thomson Hall represents the musical headquarters of the City of Toronto as it plays host to many of the major concerts and recitals that take place within the city limits.  If you visit Toronto and don’t end up taking in a concert at Roy Thomson Hall, then you are definitely missing out on something big!

Event

The main purpose of this event is for relaxation; which is perhaps why it’s free as well!  The pipe organ in Roy Thomson Hall combines with the Bach Children’s Chorus in order to present some musical performances designed to soothe the soul and allow families and people to relax during their noon hour on Thursday.  There are fifty members in the choir, all of whom are between 10 and 16 years of age.  The choir itself has won the Elmer Iseler Choral Award as well as posting major victories in the CBC and Kiwanis competitions, both of which are considered major musical competitions in Toronto.

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Mozart

Mozart has a number of distinctions as a composer, not least of which is his ability to be consistently prolific throughout his whole life.  He actually put out over 600 different compositional works throughout his lifetime and many of them are still considered classics today, showing how influential he was in his classical compositional skin.

At one point in the year 1783, Mozart and his wife had stopped over in the town of Linz in the country of Austria on their way back home to Vienna.  When the local court heard that the great Mozart had stopped over in their town, representatives were sent to fetch Mozart and request that he write a symphony for a concert that they would be holding in honour of his arrival.  Mozart quite graciously agreed to compose the symphony and a mere four days later the Linz Symphony was born.  Known formally as Mozart’s 36th Symphony, this piece of work will be played as the Mozart part of the concert.

Haydn

Haydn is another very influential composer in the same tradition as Mozart, although it can be argued by some that Haydn is more influential amongst actual musicians and composers whereas Mozart is better known amongst lay people.  Two of Haydn’s nicknames are “Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet” and just like his fellow composer Mozart, Haydn spent all of his life residing in the country of Austria.  He also came from a very musically inclined family, with one brother that was a well known composer and another that was a well known tenor singer.

The work that will be performed at the concert from Haydn is the Symphony 82 work, also sometimes referred to as the “Bear Symphony”.  The Bear Symphony is the first of Haydn’s Paris Symphonies, a series of six symphonies that were commissioned as works by the Concerts de la Loge Olympique in the city of Paris.

Bach

Bach was a baroque composer from Germany that did most of his work a few decades before either Mozart or Haydn had started on their compositional endeavours.  Bach is commonly thought of as being the composer that provided structure to the overall baroque period in composition and eventually brought that period to its ultimate conclusion.

Bach’s piece is the twist to this concert as the selection from his works that will be played is his Cello Suite #1 in G Major which actually represents a Canadian premiere of that particular work.

Event: Mozart and Haydn + Bach Downtown

Date: February 17, 2008

Time: 3:30 PM

Cost: $29-$68 for adults depending on seating location, $23-$61 for children

Location: Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre (MAP)

Closest Subway Station: Spadina Station

More Information: Phone (416-964-6337), E-Mail (info@tafelmusik.org) and Internet (http://www.tafelmusik.org)

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is going to be kicking off their Mozart Festival at Roy Thomson Hall through the performance of Symphony Number 40 by Mozart, with one of Canada’s best soprano opera singers featured in the event.  The price for seats in Roy Thomson Hall start at $20 for this event and considering that most of the seats in the hall itself are excellent for musical concerts, this is definitely something you should take a closer look at if you are going to be in the Toronto area and free the day of the concert.

Event: Mozart Festival, Symphony Number 40 by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Date: January 17-19

Cost: Tickets start at $20

Location: Roy Thomson Hall (map)

Closest Subway Station: St. Andrew

For More Information: 416-872-4255

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Aaron Davis is a composer and a keyboardist that has lots of years of experience in both of those fields as they relate to jazz blues and a person that can currently be seen regularly playing and arranging music for the singer Holly Cole.  Suzie Vinnick is a blues singer that has won a number of awards for her great talents and is also someone that has been credited with writing some of her own songs as well as playing some musical accompaniment on different instrumental recordings.

Together, the two of them are going to sound terrific and it is in this spirit that we take a look at the dynamic duo playing blues music in front of a crowd at the Textile Museum of Canada.  This is going to be a simply fantastic event for all to see and the fact that even non-members can get into the event for less than $20 tells you just how much value you can get for your money by attending this event.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Event: Blues by Aaron Davis and Suzie Vinnich

Date: January 9th, 2008 @ 6:30 PM

Location: Textile Museum of Canada (map)

Closest Subway Station: St. Patrick

More Information: 416-599-5321

Post from: The Toronto Traveler

Whenever the holiday season is in full swing in Toronto you can expect one of the big parts of the holiday celebrations to be based on music.  Many of the schools in Toronto have music programs and many of those music programs have their annual concerts around this time.

One of the concerts that is going to happen on Sunday is a concert by the St. Michael’s Boys Choir with musical accompaniment to a concert that they are calling Christmas in Vienna.  This combines new world enthusiasm with old world charm in order to create a concert experience that few are likely to ever forget.

The concert is $20 to attend and more information about it can be found by phoning 416-499-2204.

Post from: The Toronto Traveler