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Stewart Goodyear. Photo: Andrew Garn

Preview | Stewart Goodyear Opens Edmonton Chamber Music Society 2025-26 Season

By Hal Kowalewski on 2 October 2025 Chamber Music, Classical Music, Interviews, Piano, West

With its 2025-26 season, the Edmonton Chamber Music Society (ECMS) presents a series of intimate performances that bring exceptional international talent to Alberta. Pianist Stewart Goodyear’s opening recital on Oct. 3, one of the highlights of the organization’s seven-show season, is a creative program that combines classic Beethoven sonatas with Goodyear’s own celebrated compositions. Though volunteer-run, ECMS holds itself to the same high administrative and programming standards as would any of its professional counterparts. Its volunteers are experts in the field of music, many having dedicated decades of their lives to ECMS’s mandate of bringing international talent to Edmonton. One…

Soloist Pilar Fernández with fellow performers at Vancouver International Flamenco Festival (2025). Photo: Chris Randle

Review | Celebration at Vancouver International Flamenco Festival

By Kaija Pepper on 1 October 2025 Concert Reviews, Dance, Scena Arts, Vancouver, West

After 35 years, Rosario Ancer is a dab hand at overseeing the annual Vancouver International Flamenco Festival she founded with her late husband, guitarist Victor Kolstee. This edition filled nine mostly warm and sunny late-September days with free outdoor shows on Granville Island and, at night, a handful of ticketed performances. The crowds, as usual, were large and appreciative, eager to join in with shouts of “olé!” The shows, also as usual, were stylistically varied. Palabra Flamenco, an experimental Victoria ensemble that combines English-language poetry with flamenco music and dance, presented Dark Sounds at the Waterfront Theatre (Sept. 24). Artistic…

Newswire | Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity Launches Over 30 Arts Programs for 2026

By Newswire on 25 September 2025 Newswire, Scena Arts, West

BANFF, AB, SEPTEMBER 25, 2025 – Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is thrilled to reveal a lineup of arts programs for the spring and summer sessions in 2026 and beyond. As a world-leading post-secondary institution dedicated to arts, leadership, Indigenous culture, and mountain culture in the Canadian Rockies, this new roster is open for applications today across a wide variety of artistic disciplines for artists of all stages in their career. Built to support practitioners of all fields, as well as those wishing to work between and across disciplines, the following departments revealed new programming: Indigenous Arts, Visual Arts, the…

Anne-Marie McDermott with the VSO. Photo: Courtesy of the VSO

Review | Anne-Marie McDermott Dazzles with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

By Kaitlyn Chan on 23 September 2025 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Piano, Vancouver, West

Update: The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra musicians had yet to issue a strike notice at the time of writing this review. On Monday evening, the Vancouver Musicians’ Association (VMA), Local 145 of the Canadian Federation of Musicians, filed the 72-hour notice on behalf of the orchestra’s more than 70 members. Read more about this job action here. From Sept. 19 to 21, American classical pianist Anne-Marie McDermott joined the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) to perform Beethoven’s Second and Fourth Piano Concertos. The orchestra also performed Louise Farrenc’s Third Symphony and Mozart’s overture to his comic opera Così fan tutte. While the…

Newswire | Vancouver Opera Launches 2025-2026 Season with Verdi’s Rigoletto

By Newswire on 19 September 2025 Classical Music, Newswire, Opera, Vancouver, West

SEPTEMBER 16, 2025, VANCOUVER, B.C. / Traditional territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations – The Vancouver Opera 2025-2026 season opens October 25, 2025 with Verdi’s Rigoletto. Set against a backdrop of decadence and dark intrigue, Verdi’s immortal work tells the tale of a father’s desperate love for his daughter—and the dangerous double-edged sword of vengeance. The court jester Rigoletto had long enjoyed the privilege of mocking the Duke of Mantua’s adversaries, but when his beloved daughter becomes the target of the morally corrupt Duke’s abuse, Rigoletto sets in motion a revenge plot that careens with the propulsive energy of an edge-of-the-seat thriller, while bringing themes…

Newswire | Rafael Payare Leads San Diego Symphony in 13 Programs in 2025-26

By Newswire on 16 September 2025 Classical Music, Orchestral, West

(September 2025) — The San Diego Symphony (SDS) and Music Director Rafael Payare look forward in 2025–26 to their second season in the orchestra’s new indoor home at the Jacobs Music Center, a nearly 100-year-old theater that underwent a complete renovation before reopening in 2024 with superior acoustics and beautiful aesthetics. The San Diego Union-Tribune declared that the SDS “finally has a San Diego venue that permits it to sound like the world-class orchestra they’ve been since Payare took over.” Taking advantage of the venue’s new flexible presentation capabilities, Payare leads 13 programs over the course of the season, including some of the monumental works of Bruckner, Mahler, and Strauss that have earned him a reputation as “a…

Newswire | Vancouver Choreographer Joshua Beamish Announces Launch of New Classical Dance Company, Ballet Vancouver

By Newswire on 12 September 2025 Arts Industry, Dance, Vancouver, West

Vancouver, BC — Internationally acclaimed Vancouver choreographer Joshua Beamish announces the launch of Vancouver-based ballet company, Ballet Vancouver Performance Series (Ballet Vancouver), which aims to re-establish a consistent local presence for professional classical, neoclassical, and narrative ballet performed en pointe. Ballet Vancouver will present its inaugural mixed program in celebration of the Company’s official launch at the Vancouver Playhouse on April 23-25, 2026. “After recently celebrating the 20th anniversary of my eponymous dance company, Joshua Beamish/MOVETHECOMPANY, I began reflecting upon what was missing from the local dance ecology of Vancouver – my home city,” says Beamish. “While we have a…

Newswire | CollabWest: An Annual Festival of Creative Collaboration

By Newswire on 5 September 2025 Scena Arts, Vancouver, West

September 4, 2025, Vancouver, BC – On October 18, 2025, an artisan woodworking studio in North Vancouver will host the inaugural launch party of CollabWest ‘25 — an event featuring the work of three handpicked creatives, brought together to collaborate, create, and support a mutually chosen charitable cause. This year’s collaborators—Keith Stride, Chairman Ting, and The Team behind Reduxwood West join forces to create three unique pieces presented in an exclusive silent auction with 100% of proceeds going to HeadsUpGuys, a program of the University of British Columbia and the global leader in men’s mental health support. Collaboration is Key – Three Creatives. One…

Newswire | Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra to Open 2025-26 Season with Tosca, Opera in Concert

By Newswire on 5 September 2025 Classical Music, Opera, Orchestral, West

September 5, 2025 – OTTAWA (Canada) – Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra (NACO) will open its 2025–2026 season dramatically with a semi-staged presentation of Tosca, Giacomo Puccini’s beloved opera, in Southam Hall. Proudly produced with Edmonton Opera’s Emerging Artist Program, the opera in concert features an all-star cast of soloists, including soprano Ailyn Pérez in the title role, tenor Matthew Cairns as Mario Cavaradossi, and bass-baritone Nathan Berg as Baron Scarpia. They will be joined by the Ewashko Singers, an Ottawa-based chamber choir, led by Chorus Master Laurence Ewashko. Helming Tosca is acclaimed opera director Joel Ivany, who returns to…

Opera Across Canada: A Mostly Safe 2025-26

By Gianmarco Segato on 4 September 2025 Montreal, Opera, Ottawa, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver, Vocal, West

As opera companies continue to navigate the challenges of skyrocketing costs and audience retention, most Canadian organizations are opting to program well-known titles in 2025-26. Here’s a season rundown from west to east. Pacific Opera Victoria Artistic Director Brenna Corner presents a season in keeping with POV’s always-careful mix of repertoire stalwarts and less-usual fare. October brings a new production of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw staged by Canadian theatre director Michael Shamata, with a stellar Canadian cast including Kirsten MacKinnon, Isaiah Bell, Jonelle Sills and Catherine Daniel. In February, Corner herself stages Puccini’s Tosca with a role-debuting Meghan…

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