Charlotte Day Wilson to Play Special Orchestral Concert in Toronto in 2025

Charlotte Day Wilson is preparing for a hometown concert that she calls "a dream opportunity."

On February 28, 2025, the Grammy nominated R&B/soul singer-songwriter will play a Red Bull Symphonic concert with members of the the Symphonic Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, the home of the acclaimed Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Tickets go on sale Friday, December 13, 2024 at redbull.ca/symphonic.

Previous editions of Red Bull Symphonic in Atlanta and Los Angeles have featured Rick Ross and Metro Boomin, plus special guests including John Legend, Swae Lee and more.

It will be the first orchestral concert for Wilson, and she's approaching it as a full vision of her current state as a musician.

"I want people to come away from it understanding the musical makeup that I have and of my sense of self within music," Charlotte Day Wilson tells Billboard Canada over Zoom from her apartment in Toronto. "It's really exciting."

She's still in her early 30s, but Wilson has been recording and performing for well over a decade. With two albums and multiple EPs, she has a full body of work to play from, and she's excited to rethink it in a new context.

"'I'm at a stage where I have been doing this now for a good amount of time, which means that my catalog is relatively deep," she says. "I'm excited to open up my catalog and collaborate with an orchestra, to be able to pick and choose and pluck the songs that really tell a story together and do it in a cinematic, orchestral way."

Wilson grew up playing classical piano and spent a year studying saxophone at Dalhousie University in Halifax before dropping out to pursue her own music in her early 20s. She says she's excited to play with classically trained musicians, who she admires for their "pure dedication to one instrument." She hasn't followed that lane to the same degree, but she understands the meticulous dedication to process. She's been vocal about being a woman working on the technical side of music, producing as well as performing.

Her 2024 album, Cyan Blue, has been nominated for a Grammy for Best Engineered Album, and though Jack Rochon was the primary engineer, Wilson says the two of them made everything in the room together as"an exchange of two people producing and engineering and writing all in tandem."

Charlotte Day Wilson's soulful voice and songwriting chops have become a secret weapon for many renowned musicians. She's performed and collaborated with Kaytranada, Daniel Caesar, Mustafa, BadBadNotGood and Nelly Furtado, and one of her songs was even sampled by Drake.

Wilson won't give away any special guests for this show, but says she is hoping to have some surprises.

"I'm a really collaborative person in general and I am lucky to have worked with a lot of great artists," she says. "I love continuing to expand my creative community."

The Grammy recognition and the ability to do a full-scale orchestral concert feels like a moment of wider recognition in a field that can often include a lot of isolation. It also feels like a "maturing moment," she says, which fits her mindset right now.

"It's something I think about a lot as an artist," she says. "In an industry that is ruthlessly obsessed with youth, how do we graduate into a next chapter of life and still maintain our integrity and relevance. That's something I think about all the time, and it's something I want to approach really deliberately."