What if you only had running water in your home for two hours, once every eight or nine days? That is the reality for some people living in the city of Tiruppur, India, said Dr. Nidhi Subramanyam, an assistant professor of geography and planning at the University of Toronto. As the keynote speaker at the opening of the Global Ideas Institute on Wednesday, she provided vital perspective for this year’s challenge ‒ Drops of Innovation: Advancing Global Clean Water Access. With two billion people around the world lacking access to safely managed drinking water, how can we develop simple, low-cost solutions to improve access to safe drinking water in communities where it is currently unavailable? A total of 37 teams from 28 schools, with the support of 75 University of Toronto student mentors, will take on this challenge at the 2025-26 Institute, a program of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy in partnership with UTS. (Another connection: Alum Samaa Kazerouni Shah ’14 is the director of the Institute!) After the opening session in our school’s Withrow Auditorium, students met their U of T mentors in breakout rooms to begin devising innovative solutions they will present at the Global Ideas Institute symposium in the spring. We can’t wait to see what they come up with! https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/gii (fb)

The masterclass became a conversation between student and teacher, and the nuances of the music became the lesson ‒ a touch faster here, a little more joyful there, softer here… “Beautiful,” proclaimed UTS alum Aaron Schwebel ’06, guiding M3 (grade 9) cellist Ryan and pianist Andrew through Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata, and then M4 (grade 10) violinist Christie and Andrew through Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, on stage in our school’s Withrow Auditorium. “Aaron talked a lot about ballet and how Tchaikovsky’s music is full of movement and grace, which gave me new ideas on how to work on the piece. These ideas helped me make my playing feel a lot lighter, freer and more expressive,” said Christie. The students incorporated the feedback on the spot, elevating their already strong performances to even greater heights, as music classes watched on, learning from the lessons at hand. “Changing small and seemingly unnoticeable aspects of your playing can have a large effect on the sound you produce,” said Ryan. The concertmaster of the The National Ballet of Canada and assistant concertmaster of the Canadian Opera Company, Aaron is also the director of the Echo Chamber Toronto, a performance series intertwining live chamber music and dance, joining UTS as one of our artists-in-residence this school year. The Masterclass was the first in a series of events ‒ the following day students had the opportunity to observe the open rehearsal of Echo Chamber’s new “musical road trip” for young audiences, The Very Canadian Road Trip, in our own Jackman Theatre. And to bring these experiences full circle, M4, S5 and S6 students went to the opera on the weekend to watch Aaron perform in Romeo et Juliette by Gounod. (fb)