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Katarzyna Musiał. Photo: Agnieszka Stalkoper

Report | Festival Stella Musica: Celebrating a Decade of Women’s Voices

By Adrian Rodriguez on 7 November 2025 Classical, Contemporary, Jazz, Montreal, Piano, Vocal

Since its founding, the Stella Musica Festival has been dedicated to celebrating the achievements of women in music and the arts, weaving connections between styles, cultures, and eras. For its 10th edition, under the artistic direction of pianist Katarzyna Musiał, the Festival offered an intimate evening where virtuosity, discovery, and shared emotion came together. On Oct. 26, the warm acoustics of Montreal’s Salle Claude-Léveillée created the perfect setting for a program that moved fluidly from classical repertoire to jazz, contemporary works, and world-music influences. The small room was packed, with the audience only a few meters from the performers, able…

Newswire | The Royal Conservatory of Music Launches “Orchestrated”

By Newswire on 5 November 2025 Contemporary, Newswire, Orchestral, Toronto

Feature image: Cory Wong (Photo: Galen Higgins), Kishi Bashi (Photo: Rob Williamson), Dragonette (Photo: Shervin Lainez) TORONTO, October 16, 2025 – The Royal Conservatory of Music is turning up the volume on what a concert experience can be. This fall, the Conservatory introduces Orchestrated, a bold new series presented in RCM’s own Koerner Hall that pairs today’s most inventive artists with the power and promise of the top student ensemble in Canada, the Royal Conservatory Orchestra. Across three unforgettable evenings, audiences will experience Koerner Hall as never seen before through a reimagined concert format that combines live orchestral performance with immersive social experiences – including pre-show gatherings, signature cocktails,…

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…

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…

Ben Kim with Busan Philharmonic Orchestra at Musikfest Berlin. Photo: Fabian Schellhorn

Report | Musikfest Berlin: Bauhaus Opera Undone, Week 3 Highlights

By Gianmarco Segato on 1 October 2025 Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Contemporary, La Scena Online, Opera, Orchestral, Vocal

Musikfest Berlin went into its final week with the Berlin Philharmonic returning on Sept. 17, this time under their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, for two mid-century works and a romantic chestnut. North American orchestras have a penchant for world premieres, something the festival also shares, but they are less likely to program no-longer-new 20th and 21st-century works, especially by European composers. The Berlin Phil helped to remedy this imbalance with Pascal Dusapin’s Exeo (Latin for “I go beyond”), the fifth of his seven Solos for Orchestra (2002). Its thick, heavy textures create large swathes of colour, heavy on brass, which…

Lebrecht Weekly | Arvo Pärt: And I heard a voice (ECM)

By Norman Lebrecht on 12 September 2025 Choral, Contemporary, Lebrecht Weekly, Vocal

Silenced by Communism in his prime, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt delved into a personal religious faith whose musical language pre-dated the Reformation. He turned 90 this week. The vocal works on this birthday album are all devotional, some resembling early Anglican worship, others of a profound personal character. I was amagnetised by Sieben Magnificat-Antiphonen, where Pärt explores pre-Christian monodies in a unified world without doctrines and divisions, let alone dialectical materialism. He does unexpected things with voices and echoes, creating a sound that is at once tranquil and haunted. What Pierre Boulez once dismissed as ‘holy minimalism’ proves irresistibly…

New and Contemporary Music: An Invigorating Season Begins

By Benjamin Goron on 4 September 2025 Contemporary, Montreal, Quebec City

The autumn of 2025 promises to be a rich one for new and contemporary music throughout Quebec. The season is shaping up to offer a diverse landscape where established institutions, innovative collectives and specialized festivals intersect. Le Vivier: An Autumn Synonymous with Density and Intensity True to its mission of bringing together the driving forces of musical creation, Le Vivier opens the season with a series of daring concerts that, over the course of a month, offer a veritable compendium of contemporary experimentation. On Sept. 16, Paramirabo ensemble kicks things off with Bad Trip, an electroacoustic concert focusing on the…

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano. Photo: Helge Hansen

Leif Ove Andsnes : The View from Above

By Justin Bernard on 4 September 2025 Contemporary, Interviews, Piano, Romantic

Leif Ove Andsnes rarely takes time off from music. Winter, summer, spring, autumn—it fills his days and, sometimes, his nights. At 9:30 p.m. on the evening of our Zoom meeting, the Norwegian pianist was getting ready to sit down at the keyboard for another rehearsal session. His concerts at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival on the west coast of Norway and then at the Chamber Music Festival in the capital, Oslo, had barely ended when the artist was already looking ahead to the new season that awaits him. And what a season it will be! In the space of just…

2025 Fall Festivals Guide

By La Scena Musicale Team on 3 September 2025 Baroque and Early, Classical Music, Contemporary, Jazz, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, West

Montreal Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) Montréal, September 6 to October 26 | www.ciocm.org The Canadian International Organ Competition (CIOC) presents the 2025 Grand Organ Festival, with over 15 events in Montréal and across Québec from September 6 to October 26. Music lovers are invited to explore the King of Instruments through a varied program including jazz, classical, experimental, and everything in between. The headline concert on October 4 features Peter Richard Conte, who was principal organist at the legendary Wanamaker Grand Court Organ (the world’s largest fully functioning instrument) in Philadelphia for more than 35 years. VIP tickets include…

Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra

Calgary Philharmonic 2025/26 Season Kicks Off Sept 5

By Newswire on 14 August 2025 Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Film, Movie soundtrack music, Multimedia, Musical Theatre, Musique populaire, Newswire, Opera, Piano, Strings, Theatre, Violin, West

Calgary AB (August 14, 2025) — World-renowned stars, epic classics, thrilling collaborations, rockin’ pops, family fun, blockbuster movies, and more — the Calgary Phil heads into its 70th anniversary season with concerts for all ages and tastes. Celebrating seven decades as Calgary’s Orchestra, the Calgary Phil is more committed than ever to making orchestral music accessible to everyone. September alone demonstrates the exciting variety that audiences can expect throughout the season. We officially get things cooking on September 5 at The Big Four Roadhouse for the Canadian premiere of SYNTHONY: EDM Meets Orchestra, which sees the Calgary Phil, along with…

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