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Photo: Brent Calis

Mécénat Musica | Jaap Nico Hamburger: Composer-in-residence

By Wah Keung Chan on 28 October 2025 Arts Industry, Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Classical Music, Contemporary, Opera, Orchestral

Scores and notes of Mécénat Musica Composer-in-Residence and Mécénat Musica Prix 3 Femmes composers and librettists are offered to emerging Quebec and Canadian artists royalty-free, forever! Juno-nominated Jaap Nico Hamburger has composed or is composing 112 movements of Mécénat Musica Compositions featuring symphonies, concertos, chamber music, oratorios, and opera, including multiple recordings with the Orchestre Métropolitain, Ensemble Caprice, Ensemble ArtChoral, the Residentie Orkest (Netherlands) and the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra. “The music just comes to me. I just write down what I hear,” says Hamburger. Only seven years after leaving a full-time career as a cardiologist to devote his life to…

Grand Prize Winners of the 2025 Canadian Music Competition: Barron Jiyu Jiang, Piano Trio Sacora, Julien Gagné and Ethan Wang

Canadian Music Competition: A Bold Return and Revision

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 October 2025 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Interviews, Music Competition

Founded in 1958, the Canadian Music Competition (CMC) has discovered and supported generations of high-level classical musicians. Its continued relevance has relied on the organization’s ability to innovate, adapt, and meet challenges. With the end of a vital sponsorship in 2024, the CMC had to apply these strategies and now returns with renewed vigour in 2025. Newly sponsored by the Azrieli Foundation, the CMC introduced a revised structure for its 2025 edition that focuses on education, Canadian culture, and putting more power in the hands of its “chapters” (organizations affiliated with the CMC based in each province). Instead of its…

CIOC’s 2025 Grand Organ Festival: Celebrating the Ever-Evolving Instrument

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 October 2025 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Contemporary, Jazz

Despite the organ’s extensive history dating back to the third century BCE, it still holds a vital place in the context of music-making today. The Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) proves this with their popular competitions, festivals, and concerts. This year’s Grand Organ Festival highlights up-and-coming organists, various musical genres, and a world premiere. “The organ is far from a dead instrument,” says Artistic Director Jean-Willy Kunz. Rather, it seems to evolve with the performers, composers, and audiences who enjoy it. During the festival, Kunz will perform on the pipe organ alongside a jazz quintet at Montreal’s St. James United…

Autour de la Flûte: A World of Flutes

By Heather Weinreb on 3 October 2025 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Montreal, Winds

Mika Putterman does not identify with the stereotypical description of a flutist. When it was time to “choose a real instrument” after having played recorder in school, Putterman’s parents thought their daughter matched the description of flutists in Attarah Ben-Tovim’s book, The Right Instrument for Your Child. For Ben-Tovim, flutists are people prone to daydreaming and forgetfulness. Yet Putterman, founding director of the Montreal-based concert series Autour de la Flûte (ADLF), approaches the flute more as a hard-nosed detective than a dreamer with her head in the clouds. “I’m very intellectual,” she says. “I get all the facts and then…

Tafelmusik and Rachel Podger: Love at First Bow

By Viktor Lazarov on 3 September 2025 Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Classical Music, Orchestral, Strings, Toronto

Flying across bridges of time spread over ornate baroque landscapes, bellicose classical terrains, early romantic gardens, and idiosyncratic 21st-century reliefs, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra travels at a speed precious few ensembles could match. Three years short of a 50th anniversary, the Toronto-based ensemble opens their 2025-26 season with a star-studded cast of guest directors and soloists. “We’re starting our second season with Rachel Podger as principal guest director,” says violist Brandon Chui, one of Tafelmusik’s three artistic directors. Building on a decade-long symbiotic relationship, Tafelmusik and Podger kick off with Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 in G minor, one of the most recognizable…

Immersive installations shape VNM’s 2025-26 season

By Newswire on 2 September 2025 Canadian Music, Multimedia, Newswire, Vancouver

VANCOUVER, BC – Vancouver New Music’s 2025-26 season celebrates the transformative power of sound with an inspiring lineup of international, Canadian, and local artists. The season opens with soundscape artist Yota Kobayashi’s Shiki & Kū, a collaborative immersive installation presented in partnership with VIVO Media Arts Centre, Formscape Arts and IM4 Media Lab, followed by this year’s VNM Festival, Whispered Folds, featuring eight groundbreaking artists exploring themes of intimacy, boundaries, and borders. Throughout the year, our On Curation Mentorship Project showcases emerging curatorial voices presenting innovative artists and concepts. International highlights of this season include the Vancouver debut of vocalist…

Review | 12 Ensemble grows a British-Canadian premiere

By James Ellis on 9 July 2025 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral

After their collaborative season at Wigmore Hall, string orchestra 12 Ensemble are going from strength to strength. What this string ensemble might lack in a telling name, they make up for with energy and attentive drive. Melankolia from Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Cantus Arcticus (Concerto for Birds and Orchestra) was a bold opener for its July 8th livestreamed concert. The warble of the shorelark is heard on tape (and slightly lowered in tone) and is mirrored with the sensual playing of the ensemble with a harp in the auditorium, as brass and woodwind on the balcony gradually meld into the…

NAC Kipnes Lantern. Photo: Trevor Lush

Celebrate Canada Day with a free concert featuring Alexander Shelley and the NAC Orchestra

By Newswire on 25 June 2025 Canadian Music, Choral, Classical Music, Newswire, Orchestral, Ottawa, Vocal

June 25, 2025 – OTTAWA – Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra is delighted to host a free Canada Day concert featuring an all-star line-up of Canadian talent. Led by NAC Orchestra Music Director Alexander Shelley and supported by the Orchestra’s Resident Conductor Henry Kennedy and guest conductor Benoit Gauthier, the program includes music from celebrated Canadian composers Ian Cusson, John Estacio, Kati Agócs, and Jordan Nobles. Bilingual slam poet, musician, and composer Yao returns to the NAC’s main stage to host this year’s event, which features several local and visiting artists, including NAC Orchestra Principal Trumpet Karen Donnelly, the Hamilton…

La Scena Musicale’s Festival Picks

By La Scena Musicale Team on 4 June 2025 Baroque and Early, Canadian Music, Classical Music, Folk, Musique populaire, Vocal

British Columbia and Alberta by Madeline Boldt EARLY MUSIC VANCOUVER This year marks the 55th anniversary of Early Music Vancouver’s Summer Festival. From July 26-Aug. 8, early-music lovers in Vancouver can expect a wide array of performances, from Mozart’s Requiem to Schubert’s Lieder, as well as a Chinese-Baroque Musical Dialogue featuring Vancouver’s Sound of Dragon Ensemble. Titled In Endless Ascent, the 2025 festival focuses on the theme of spiritual transformation and musical elevation, blending the old and the new. www.earlymusic.bc.ca Banff International String Quartet Competition From Aug. 25-31, some of the world’s finest emerging string quartets will take the stage…

Spiritus Chamber Choir: 30 years of Canadian Choral Excellence

By Kaitlyn Chan on 3 June 2025 Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Choral, Classical Music, Interviews, Vocal

In 1995, David Wilson founded the Spiritus Chamber Choir. This Calgary-based ensemble quickly grew in popularity and esteem, filling a space in the community for a high-level chamber choir. During Wilson’s six-year tenure, they received an International Contemporary A Cappella Recording Award (1999) and reached the semifinals in the CBC National Choral Competition (2000). In the 30 years since Spiritus was founded, the choir has become recognized nationally and internationally for its excellence. One of the pivotal moments in its history was winning second prize and the Heinrich Schütz Perpetual Trophy for the best performance of a work by the…

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