Described by the Ottawa Citizen as “Outstanding - no, make that astonishing!”, Canada's premier percussion ensemble TorQ Percussion Quartet continues to bring new vitality to percussion repertoire and performance in every situation and opportunity. Renowned for their engaging performances, members Richard Burrows, Adam Campbell, Jamie Drake, and Daniel Morphy are committed to making percussion music accessible to audiences that span generations and as The Toronto Star states "[TorQ] can stand proud among the growing throng of chamber percussion ensembles around the world."
Since coming together in 2004, some of their international highlights include the International Percussion Quartet Festival (Luxembourg), Percussive Arts Society International Convention (Indianapolis) and with the Stuttgart Chamber Choir. At home, TorQ has made appearances at the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, PEI's Indian River Festival, MusicFest Canada (Vancouver), Toronto's Soundstreams, and Kitchener's Open Ears Contemporary Music Festival. Selected by the three major Canadian touring organisations, Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Prairie Debut and Debut Atlantic, TorQ has performed throughout every province. In 2012, they launched their !rst annual concert series in Toronto where they collaborated with invited guest artists, composers, and dancers.
The 2014-2015 season saw TorQ on extensive tours in Alaska, Illinois, Idaho, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Ontario. They were guest artists with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Grand Philharmonic Choir of Kitchener-Waterloo. As collaborative artists, the quartet has performed with the Larkin Singers, Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, Elora Festival Singers, and the Hamilton Children's Choir, as well as soloists Krisztina Szabo, Rivka Golani, and composer Nicole Lizée.
Committed to commissioning new works for percussion quartet, TorQ has presented many Canadian and world premieres including a new percussion quartet concerto written by Canadian composer, Dinuk Wijeratne called Invisible Cities which premiered in 2014. Their discography consists of three recordings on Bedoint Records. Their self-titeld first CD was awarded 3.5/4 stars by The Toronto Star. Their third CD was released in November 2014, in celebration of their milestone 10th anniversary season. Titled Without a Map, this two disc set consists entirely of improvised music that, while sharing identical percussive instrument groupings by track order, offer alternate perspectives of the quartet's sonic journey.
Advocates for music education, TorQ is actively involved in music education initiatives and performs approximately 70 school shows per year, and are faculty members of the Durham Integrated Arts Camp, run by the Durham District School Board. They are also frequent educational collaborators with Soundstreams Canada and present master classes and workshops for high schools and university students. Summer 2015 saw TorQ hosted their fourth annual TorQ Percussion Seminar, a week-long percussion event which took place in collaboration with the Lunenburg Academy of Music Performance in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
TorQ endorses Yamaha Percussion, Innovative Percussion, Dream Cymbals, Black Swamp Percussion and Remo Percussion.
