Manufactured by Bombardier Transportation, a company with factories in Canada and Germany, Bombardier Flexity is a family of modern trams, streetcars and light rail vehicles. These vehicles run in Berlin and Toronto and are therefore a connector between both cities. Both uni-directional and bi-directional versions are used and have a full 100 percent low floor interior with either five or seven sections. These are five-section, air-conditioned vehicles and are compatible with the existing light rail network in Toronto. Their seating’s are comfortable, just as flight seating’s and are popular with locals and tourists for their daily commute.
Helmut Max Kallmann was born in Berlin (1922), and was a music historian and scholar of Canadian music history. As a child he received informal piano lessons from his father, until he was sent to England in 1939 as part of the Kinder Transport rescue mission. He lived for a short time in London and was deported to Canada in 1940. His family could not leave Berlin and died in the Holocaust. By the mid 1940s he settled in Toronto where he studied music at the University of Toronto. During his study he was dismayed to find that there were no Canadian composers included in the music history curriculum. He began to gather information on Canadian composers, a project that would constitute his life’s work. His publication, A History of Music in Canada (1534–1914) in 1960 was the first step, and gave flight in establishing the field and encouraging other researchers. During his lifetime he was a librarian at the Library Archives Canada and co-founder of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries. He also co-edited both editions of the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (1981 and 1992) and was a Member of the Order of Canada.
Sourcefabric is a developer of open source software for news media organizations. Based in Prague, they have branches in Berlin and Toronto which is why the company is a connector of the three cities. They primarily help media organizations make money from digital content. The software gives journalists the much- needed competitive edge to achieve their goals. Their experts can be hired for software development, consultation, training, hardware installation and many more services. Their international list of clients includes leading companies in news media and service providers. They have received several awards such as the Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism (2011), Guardian Megas Award for Digital Innovation (2012), and African News Innovation Challenge Award (2012).
Berlin and Toronto are connected by an abstract art sculpture made by the artist Henry Moore. The Three-Way Piece Points is a bronze abstract sculpture and contains curvaceous forms and stands on three points. Viewed from a distance it appears to have a smooth surface, but on a closer look, scratches and indentations cover its surface. The sculpture can be placed in a variety of different orientations, which still work when viewed from different angles. It is too large and heavy to be moved into different positions by one person. The cast of a related bronze sculpture, Three Way Piece number two: Archer is on display at the National Gallery, Berlin, and Nathan Phillips Square outside Toronto City Hall, Toronto. Fans of Moore’s abstract art from around the world can board a flight and visit Berlin and Toronto to get a glimpse of one of Moore’s greatest works.
Ana Simina Grigoriu is a DJ and music producer specializing in electronic techno music. Living in Berlin since 2008, she was born in Romania and raised in Toronto, making her a perfect blend of different cultural and musical influences. She began her music career with rapping during her time at the secondary school in Toronto, before she found her love of electronic music. Later on in life, she met the celebrity in the techno music scene and her future husband Paul Kalkbrenner, who was on his promotional tour for his film ‘Berlin Calling’ in Toronto. She moved to Berlin in summer of 2008 where her career took flight, she began playing in clubs and festivals, further building her production skills. In 2010, she performed as the opening act for Kalkbrenner’s 2010 Berlin Calling concert tour and on 24th August 2012 she published her first album. The day after, she married Paul Kalkbrenner. After launching her own label Kuukou, she is an active globetrotter, constantly touring, and attracting crowds at festivals and venues all over the world.
Theodore August Heintzmann was born in Berlin (1817) and was piano manufacturer and founder of Heintzman & Company. For over a century and a half, his Toronto-based company has been producing high-quality pianos in the world. After learning to manufacture pianos in Berlin, he immigrated with his family to New York by sea, in those days flights were yet to be invented. After brief business ventures in Greenwich Village and in Buffalo he came to Toronto in 1860. In 1866, he established the first Heintzman factory in Toronto and two years later he moved to King Street, employing 12 people and producing 60 pianos a year. By 1873 he had moved further down King’s Street where his new building served as factory, showroom and office space, this would be the company’s main factory until 1962. The company acquired patents for improvement in 1873, 1882, 1884 and 1896, ensuring Heintzman instruments remained a cutting edge. Theodor died in 1899 in Toronto, shortly after the death of his wife. This way Berlin can be seen the technological heart of Heintz & company in Toronto.
Leopold Infeld (1898–1968) was a physicist, who was born into a family of Polish Jews in Kraków, Poland. In his early days he studied physics at Kraków’s Jagiellonian University. Feeling the need for wider academic contacts, he travelled and spent a year in Berlin, where he met Albert Einstein and produced his first paper entitled ‘Light waves in the theory of relativity’. Impressed, Einstein’s helped gain admission to the University of Berlin and Infeld obtained his doctorate in 1921. The doctorate gave the much-needed flight to his career and he left for England, then for the United States and finally to Canada where he became a professor at the University of Toronto (1939 – 1950). In 1950, he left Toronto and returned to communist Poland, as he was unjustly accused of having communist sympathies. He was stripped of his Canadian citizenship and was widely denounced as a traitor. In 1995 the University of Toronto made amends and granted Infeld the posthumous title of professor emeritus.
Kosso Eloul was a famous Israeli – Canadian post-war sculptor. His sculptures can be found in several cities across the world like in Berlin and in Canadian cities such as Toronto, Kingston and Montreal. Born in Mourom, Russia he relocated to Tel-Aviv, Israel at the age of four. In 1938, he began his formal art training under Israeli sculptor Yitzhak Danziger. In 1963, he went to Berlin and was part of the Symposium of European Sculptors by Karl Prantl, where he created a stone sculpture in Berlin-Tiergarten. By 1964 he married Canadian artist Rita Letendre and after living in Los Angeles for some time, he permanently settled in Toronto in 1969. Kosso’s metal sculptures represent abstract art and are minimalist. Over the years he travelled to several cities around the world by flight and created several sculptures in public spaces. Some of Kosso Eloul’s best known works include ‘Meeting Place’ located in Toronto and ‘Eternal Flame’ at the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.
Born in Berlin (1895), Heinz Unger was a German conductor, known for conducting the works of Gustav Mahler. As a law student he heard Bruno Walter conduct Mahler’s ‘The Song of the Earth’ and decided to become a conductor and a champion of Mahler. His music teachers in Berlin included the likes of Wilhelm Klatte and Fritz Stiedry. In 1919, he made his professional debut, conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in several Mahler concerts, including the ‘Symphony No. 1’ and ‘The Song of the Earth’. He made his debut in North America with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in Canada in 1937, and returned there in 1938, Unger settled in Toronto in 1948. During his lifetime he travelled to several countries by flight and appeared as a conductor for several concerts. In 1956, he conducted two concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic; this was his first return to Berlin since 1933. In 1965, on his 50th anniversary as a conductor, he was awarded the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. This way he is a great connector of both cities. Unger died in Toronto in 1965.