(Credit: © Jag Gundu)

The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has won the JUNO Award for Best Classical Album: Vocal or Choral for its recording of Massenet’s “Thaïs.”

The recording stars Joshua Hopkins, Andrew Staples, Nathan Berg, Liv Redpath, Andrea Ludwig, Emilia Boteva, and Neil Aronoff. Sir Andrew Davis led the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with Jonathan Crow leading the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. In the title role is Erin Wall, who passed away in October 2020, almost one year after the recording was made during a November 2019 performance at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. Of the recording, OperaWire said it was “An Emotionally Charged Recording With Much To Delight.”

“On behalf of the TSO, I am delighted to thank the JUNO Awards for this honor, and offer a big congratulations to the exceptional TSO musicians and extraordinary soloists—the late Erin Wall, Joshua Hopkins, Andrew Staples, and Nathan Berg, the wonderful Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, and to conductor Sir Andrew Davis for ‘Massenet: Thaïs’,” said Gustavo Gimeno, TSO Music Director, in a press release. “The recognition is especially meaningful because this opera-in-concert was recorded only a few months before the world’s concert stages were silenced. I am grateful to the entire company as well as our recording partner, Chandos Records, and sound engineers, Soundmirror, Inc. for capturing this concert so beautifully.”

Per a press release, the recording, which was released mid-2020, was dedicated to the late Hans Brenninkmeyer.