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Welcome to the 2025 Summer national issue of La Scena Musicale, our final national issue of the year, in this our 29th season (2024-25) of publishing
CURRENT ISSUE
La Scena Musicale’s 29th annual Summer Festival Guide is again presented in glossy, all-colour and three-column format. The guide features 89 festivals with a more comprehensive list on our website (www.mySCENA.org).
This issue comes in separate English and French editions with a combined print run of 73,000 copies distributed nationally, including in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.
Our cover artists are two of Canada’s most impressive young talents, Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais and accordionist Michael Bridge. We celebrate the 100th birthday of Oscar Peterson with a 2-page tribute. Special summer festival coverage shines a light on outgoing Toronto Summer Music artistic director Jonathan Crow, as well as on Music and Beyond, Domaine Forget, Ottawa Chamberfest, Elora Festival, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra.
We look at the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between festivals and the small towns that host them, get insider takes on the best eating spots at festivals across the country, and gain insight into artists’ perspectives on touring. For your listening pleasure, we offer a playlist curated from five Indigenous singers. Our staff members also share their own selection of top festival events across Canada.
Choir Guide 2025
For the second year in a row, we feature a Choir Guide to help singers find the information they need, and join a choir in advance of next season. Our print magazine features 16 choirs. The entire list of 440+ choirs is available online in PDF format. We also have a special feature on Chorissimo 2025, the youth choral summit in Trois-Rivières, Quebec.
National Calendar
As in previous issues, we present a national print calendar, containing concert listings from coast to coast to coast. Due to space limitations, all listings are in summary form. We invite readers to consult our website (www.mySCENA.org) for complete details in both English and French.
La Scena Radio
For your enjoyment, we are bringing back La Scena Radio by streaming recordings reviewed in the last two issues, and other newly released albums. Visit myscena.org/radio.
SUBSCRIPTION AND DONATION DRIVE
The 2025-26 season continues the all-colour format the magazine first adopted in November 2017. Six issues are national issues, with separate English and French editions, asserting La Scena Musicale’s position as the largest bilingual arts medium in Canada. We may also publish special issues during the year.
La Scena Musicale has evolved with changing consumer media consumption habits, while also maintaining its core mission: to more widely promote music and the arts, enabling greater accessibility to all. Our print magazine will continue to provide quality curated articles, and interviews in both English and French, while our website focuses on news and events.
We aim to keep increasing our digital and print content. As this issue demonstrates, we have many talented writers and we wish to give space to their voices. Frequent price increases of magazine paper, however, are a cause for concern. We hope you consider supporting our magazine through a donation and/or by joining our fundraising committee by contacting us at don@lascena.org. Another way to support the magazine is through the LSM Boutique at mySCENA.org, where greeting cards and tickets to our partners’ events are available for purchase. It is because of everyone’s collective contribution that La Scena Musicale continues to thrive and serve the music-and-arts-loving public these past 29 years – it is truly a labour of love!
Since the pandemic, we have changed from street distribution to home delivery. We invite our readers to purchase subscriptions to ensure receiving all 7 issues per year. Subscriptions also make ideal year-long gifts for students, parents, artists and more.
As always, La Scena Musicale maintains a robust social media engagement on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and LinkedIn. The website offers new resources almost daily. Thankfully, the live performing arts are back, and La Scena Musicale is here to support them.
We wish you a happy and artistic summer!
PDF version (Download)
Contents
- 6 Editorial
- 8 Industry News
- 10 Edmonton Opera
- 10 Salle Bourgie
- 12 Toronto Summer Music
- 14 Music & Beyond
- 14 Elora Festival
- 16 Lanaudière, Tristan und Isolde
- 17 Ottawa Chamberfest
- 18 Festival Picks
- 22 Oscar Peterson at 100
- 25 Jazz Festival Season
- 26-31 National Calendar
- 27 NAC Orchestra
- 32 Chorissimo
- 34 Canadian Summer Festivals Guide
- 40 Michael Bridge
- 43 Busking
- 44 Elisabeth St-Gelais
- 46 Festival Bites
- 47 Présence Autochtone
- 48 Indigenous Playlist
- 49 Joys of the Road
- 50 CD Reviews
- 52 Choir Guide
- 53 Spiritus Chamber Choir
- 54 The Festival Effect
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Français (French)
