Canadian Concerts & Artists Inc

Canadian Concerts & Artists Inc

Canadian Concerts & Artists Inc. Corporation founded in Montreal by Nicolas Koudriavtzeff (president and general director 1943-76) with the aim of presenting artists, concerts, and shows in Canada. The company collaborated 1943-5 in the Vendredis artistiques at the St-Denis Theatre and during the same years presented open-air concerts which attracted audiences of up to 15,000 people to Molson Stadium. In 1945 it organized its first transcontinental tour of Canada, that of the pianist Witold Malcuzynski. In the 30 years of its existence it is estimated that the company presented 385 different artists or groups (soloists, symphony orchestras, ballet and folkdance presentations, operas and operettas, theatre, variety shows) in 147 visits to, or tours of, Canada. Notable among these were the Metropolitan Opera and the Peking Opera; the Moscow Circus; the major orchestras of Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Boston, and Warsaw; the Bolshoi and Paris Opera ballets, the Kirov Ballet of Leningrad and the Maurice Béjart Ballet; the solo artists Maria Callas, Jascha Heifetz, David Oistrakh, and Renata Tebaldi; the entertainers Gilbert Bécaud, Maurice Chevalier, Fernandel, and Luis Mariano; the Comédie française; and the Renaud-Barrault company. At first on its own initiative, and later in the framework of official Canada-USSR exchanges, the company organized tours in the Soviet Union for numerous Canadian solo artists, including Hyman Bress, Ida Haendel, Monique Leyrac, Lois Marshall, Louis Quilico, Joseph Rouleau, Teresa Stratas, Micheline Tessier, Bernard Turgeon, Ronald Turini, and Richard Verreau, as well as the MSO, the McGill Chamber Orchestra, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. In 1947, the company presented the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, the first Canadian orchestra to play in the famous hall.

Canadian Concerts & Artists Inc declared bankruptcy in the summer of 1976, and Koudriavtzeff then formed the company Concerts & Artistes Canadiens Inc, which supervised the presentation of recitals and shows at the PDA. Its international exchange program was taken over by the Touring Office of the Canada Council in 1976. Some months after Koudriavtzeff's death in 1980, Concerts & Artistes Canadiens ceased its activities.