Concerts and Events
X Avant XIX: TeXture. The glass walls of the Allan Gardens Children’s Conservatory did little to obscure a truth that had become evident to everyone packed in on a chilly Tuesday night in October: Fall had arrived, and with it total darkness by eight o’clock—that is, darkness subdued by the[...] Read more
The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century. Billed as the AGO’s “first hip-hop exhibit" in its 124th year of existence, The Culture can be viewed either as a cause for celebration—given hip-hop culture’s reign as the leading art form du jour—or as a source of embarrassment, given that this is hip-hop[...] Read more
2024 Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville The extraordinary nature of Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) came into sharp focus this year. Last year Michel Levasseur announced his retirement as artistic and general director of the festival, which he founded and shepherded through thirty-nine editions[...] Read more
2023 Guelph Jazz Festival. The Guelph Jazz Festival celebrated its thirtieth anniversary this year, a significant milestone for the forward-looking festival. The festival presented free park concerts in far-flung neighborhoods, which they began doing during the COVID-19 years, as well as ticketed concerts in multiple[...] Read more
Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 39th edition FIMAV, or Victo, is a unique institution: a festival in farm country 160 kilometres east of Montreal that presents a range of outside musics—avant-jazz and rock, electroacoustic and noise, etc.—from multiple cultures. Having weathered the COVID-19 years to return to its full[...] Read more
2022 Guelph Jazz Festival. The 2022 edition of the Guelph Jazz Festival marked a singular recovery from the rigours of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more presentation venues engaged than at any time in its twenty-eight-year history. Following the cancellation of the 2020 season, the festival’s[...] Read more
Sound Symposium XX The Newfoundland and Labrador Sound Symposium returned in full form this year, delivering nine jam-packed days of events for its twentieth anniversary. There was a special energy to this year’s festival, maybe because collaboration was something we had taken for granted pre-pandemic.[...] Read more
London Contemporary Music Festival Walking away from the Thames on the final night of the London Contemporary Music Festival (LCMF), I was reminded of the classic scene from The Simpsons in which Bart’s friend Nelson emerges from a screening of David Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch and says, “I can think of at[...] Read more
Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 38th edition. After a lean, socially distanced 2021 edition, Festival International de Musique Actuelle Victoriaville (FIMAV) returned this year with a strong program that offered concertgoers a chance to discover large-ensemble works by established artists along with fresh, genre-bending musical[...] Read more
Women From Space, 2022 edition Women From Space usually takes place on International Women’s Day Weekend to celebrate the varied dimensions of contemporary music practiced by women. First launched in 2019 and organized by saxophonists Bea Labikova and Kayla Milmine, this rich, wide-ranging Toronto-based festival[...] Read more
2021 Guelph Jazz Festival Since its inception in 1994, the Guelph Jazz Festival has delivered a thoughtful blend of international and local jazz, academic discourse, and strong community engagement. Cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 public health concerns, the festival returned[...] Read more
Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, 37th edition. Interrupted—like most music festivals—by the global pandemic, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (FIMAV) prided itself on being one of the first organizations to resume live programming, albeit with strict COVID-19 protocols, and its all-Canadian lineup[...] Read more