Welcome our new concertmaster, Alex Toskov!
Dear Friends of the Oakville Symphony,
We are delighted to share exciting news about our concertmaster search.
Over the past three seasons, we have engaged in a thoughtful and thorough search for a new Concertmaster. During this process, we performed with a number of outstanding guest concertmasters, and our musicians were instrumental in each part of the process.
Drawing on the musicians’ input, along with perspectives from Music Director, Lorenzo Guggenheim and the Oakville Symphony Board, we are very pleased to announce that violinist Alex Toskov will join Oakville Symphony as Concertmaster starting this summer.
You may remember listening to Alex perform with us at our February concert, UNTAMED. Alex brings a remarkable combination of experience, musical insight, and collegial leadership to this role. We are confident that his presence at the front of the orchestra will be a tremendous asset to our ensemble and to the musical experiences we share with our community. You can read more about Alex’s impressive background in the bio below.
We look forward to introducing Alex to you on stage. Please join us in warmly welcoming Alex to the Oakville Symphony community.
Warm regards,
Samantha Cheung
Board Chair, Oakville Symphony
ALEX TOSKOV serves as Concertmaster of the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra and is Music Director of the Odin Quartet which he established in 2015. The Odin Quartet has performed at Music Toronto, Music Niagara and Luminato festivals. The Quartet is maintaining a busy artistic schedule, premiering new music, as well as recording. Alex has also been a member of the first violin section of Sinfonia Toronto since 2012 and has led the orchestra on a few occasions including a gala concert in Roy Thomson Hall in June 2016. Alex toured South America in 2018 and China in 2019 with Sinfonia Toronto.
Recently, Mr. Toskov has appeared as the concertmaster of Toronto Mozart Players, Toronto Artist Symphony, Toronto Philharmonic, Toronto Operetta Theatre, Scarborough Philharmonic, Casa Loma Symphony, principal of Toronto Concert Orchestra, and has recorded various soundtracks for CBC’s Murdoch Mysteries. He also performed with Trans-Siberian Orchestra (Air Canada Centre), Diana Krall (Massey Hall), Josh Groban (Sony Centre), Il Divo (Queen Elisabeth Theatre), Evanescence (Budweiser Stage), and Owen Pallett (Massey Hall). Alex participated at St. Gallen Festival in Austria 2004, Stavanger Chamber Music Festival in Norway 2009, and Colours of Music Festival 2012 & 2013. In October 2010 he was invited to perform as a soloist on a gala concert hosted by cellist YoYo Ma in prestigious Koerner Hall in Toronto, Canada. Mr. Toskov performed as a soloist with Serbian Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was a concertmaster of Bayreuth Festival Orchestra in 2006, German-Scandinavian Youth Philharmonic 2009 and was a member of Santiago de Chile Philharmonic Orchestra in 2007/2008. During his studies in Norway 2008-2010, Alex was regularly playing with Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra.
Alex was the winner of The Glenn Gould School Chamber Music Competition 2011, is a recipient of various scholarships such as Norwegian Government scholarship, The Royal Conservatory full tuition scholarship, and Serbian Fund for highly gifted students. Alex took violin lessons with some of the greatest violin pedagogues and soloists such as Pierre Amoyal (Lausanne), Ruben Aharonian (Borodin Quartet Moscow), Isaac Shuldman (Oslo), Michael Frischenschlager (Vienna), Joel Smirnoff (New York), James Boyd (London). Mr. Toskov graduated violin at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Serbia. In 2003/04 he was a student at the University of Music in Vienna, Austria with Professor Ernst Kovacic. In June 2010 he received a title Master of Music Performance at Agder University in Norway. Alex received his Artist Diploma in June 2013 from The Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory in Toronto, where he studied with Atis Bankas on violin and Steven Dann, on viola.
Mr. Toskov speaks English, Spanish, Russian, German, Norwegian and Serbian.