Traditional music and dance

According to Statistics Canada's latest census of 2021, 5% of the Canadian population is of Aboriginal origin - that is, First Nations, Métis and Inuit. Music and dance play an essential role in the transmission of Aboriginal culture and identity. Although practices and customs vary enormously from one people to another, there is a common thread running through them all. In general, Canadian First Nations vocal music is syllabic, can be performed both solo and in chorus, and often takes the form of call and response. The music, though very much centered around the voice, is accompanied by drums and flutes or whistles.
Supported by a Trudeau government more attentive to the country's minorities, First Peoples have gradually gained in visibility over the past decade, with the immediate consequence in the cultural field of propelling more Aboriginal artists to the forefront of the Canadian music scene, notably via major festivals such as Innu Nikamu or Présence Autochtone, both based in Quebec.
In 2016, 2.3% of the Quebec population was of Aboriginal origin. The main Aboriginal populations present are Algonquin, Cree, Mohawk, Innu and Inuit. Their songs are characterized by "antiphony" (call and response), complex rhythms and the use of flutes and whistles as solo instruments - in addition to a wide variety of drums.
Among Quebec native artists to watch, the most traditional are to be found in the Black Bear group of singers and drummers. Simply amazing. A big name on the Canadian scene comes from Quebec's far north (Nunavik): Élisapie Isaac. Singing in French, English and Inuktitut - her mother tongue - about the splendors and realities of today's Inuit people, her music caresses the folk as well as the traditions of her native land.
Also well established, the committed rapper Samian is an emblem of the aboriginal scene. From the Abitibiwinni First Nation, he raps in both French and Algonquin. In northern Quebec, Florent Vollant and Shauit, both from the Maliotenam reserve, have become recognized names on the Canadian music scene in very different genres. Each in their own way, they orbit their music around a traditional core.
Ontario is home to 15% of the country's Aboriginal population, the highest concentration in Canada. Mainly Algonquin, Cree, Delaware, Haudenosaunee, Odawa, Ojibway and Potawatomi live here. The songs of the region share common structures of short iterative phrases, numerous cries, pentatonic scales and simple rhythms.
In Western Canada, the Tsimshian, Salish, Haida, Kutenai, Athabaskan and Blackfoot peoples predominate. And while on the whole the songs and dances share a sacred dimension, a percussive richness and a practice centered around the voice, singularities assert themselves within each group. On the Canadian Prairies, in the land of the Blackfoot, for example, singing is nasal, recognizable by its frequent high notes, and large, double-skinned drums are often used, whereas in British Columbia, in Tsimshian territory, monophonies are legion and songs are characterized by complex, declamatory rhythms.
A handful of local Aboriginal artists have made their way to national prominence, including Jerry Alfred from the Selkirk Aboriginal community in the Yukon, Alberta's French-speaking Crystal Plamondon, who blends traditional Cajun sounds with country, folk and pop songs (she also sings in Cree), and the world-famous Buffy Sainte-Marie, an Aboriginal folk singer with a worldwide reputation.
Otherwise, the country offers two great opportunities to discover traditional music and its artists: Vancouver's Talking Stick Festival, a great way to learn more about the First Nations, and the Calgary International Native Arts Festival, an arts and crafts event featuring a number of concerts and dances.
In the Inuit homeland of Nunavut, you can hear the famous throat singing known as katajjaq. This bewitching diphonic singing - surprising to the untrained ear - is the prerogative of women here, and was originally practiced as a game. Tanya Tagaq is the artist who is most famous for bringing this tradition to modern aesthetics. This astonishing artist has enjoyed worldwide success and has twice been awarded a Juno and once a Polaris Prize.
Also, in 2014, the fine American label Light in the Attic released the compilation Native North America, bringing together many rare songs and forgotten musicians from First Nations and Inuit. An invaluable document for obtaining a broad overview of these artists and the way they have embraced modern music.
Otherwise, National Aboriginal Day, celebrated every year on June 21, is a not-to-be-missed event. As its name suggests, this special day celebrates the unique heritage, cultural diversity and remarkable contributions of First Nations, Inuit and Métis people to Canada, and includes its fair share of demonstrations of traditional practices.

Classical music

Given a relatively young national history, one cannot speak of a "classical music tradition" in Canada. Canada's first operas date back to the late 18th century with the composer, poet and playwright Joseph Quesnel (1746-1809) and his work Colas et Colinette (1790), sometimes considered the first opera in North America.
One of the pioneers of Canadian music was composer and pianist Robert Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943). He remains one of the earliest African American composers in history and is remembered for his unique style, a blend of influences from Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Nadia Boulanger - with whom he studied in Paris - and Dvořák, as well as spiritual music. Long forgotten, he is gradually being rediscovered and performed in recent years.
The other renowned composers intervene long after, in the contemporary register between the 1950s and 1970s, with names like Pierre Mercure, Serge Garant, Gilles Tremblay or the dark genius Claude Vivier. Jacques Hétu is the most widely performed Canadian composer abroad, a lyric poet who is both neoclassical and profoundly modern. Also, linked to the minimalist and musique concrète movements, let's not forget to mention R. Murray Schafer, the (almost) famous inventor of the concepts of soundscapes and ecology that place the acoustic environment at the heart of the composition.
Of all the Canadian musicians, the most famous - and the most impressive - is of course the fabulous pianist Glenn Gould. Prodigy. A precocious talent, he joined the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) at the age of 14 and became famous with his otherworldly interpretation of Bach's Goldberg Variations (two recordings in 1955 and 1981). A virtuoso bordering on genius, Glenn Gould nevertheless abruptly retired from the stage (and from public life) in 1964 to devote himself to the recording studio. From then on, he concentrated on composing and creating radio and television programs. His unique style with its intense, elastic tempi divided the musical community as much as it fascinated the public. A true icon of his city, Gould's soul is everywhere in Toronto, including 250 Front Street West, in front of the CBC offices, where you can sit beside his bronze statue.
Canada also has a few other lesser-known but remarkable pianists, such as Jan Lisiecki, a precocious prodigy who as a youngster played with the world's most prestigious symphony ensembles, Louis Lortie, a great Chopin interpreter with a plethora of discography and a piquant style, Alain Lefèvre, a star of his instrument, or Marc-André Hamelin, a pianist often described as a virtuoso, also known for his immense repertoire and his passion for composers considered unplayable.
In addition to its pianists, the country also has a number of lyrical talents who have made it shine beyond its borders. Beginning in the early 20th century, contralto Portia White (1911-1968) was the first African-Canadian singer to achieve international fame. Later came George London (1920-1985), bass-baritone and the first non-Russian to sing Boris Godunov at the Bolshoi; Louis Quilico (1925-2000), a baritone nicknamed "Mr. Rigoletto" who performed 25 years in a row at the New York Met; his contemporary Jon Vickers, a powerful tenor who performed in the same place for 27 years in almost 300 performances; and finally bass Joseph Rouleau, who performed on the greatest stages with the best.
On the conducting side, the country shines in the hands of iconic and iconoclastic Quebecer Walter Boudreau, who heads the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec, Peter Oundjian, who once led the Toronto Symphony, and last but not least, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the immense conductor who shook up and refreshed the Rotterdam Philharmonic and still leads the Philadelphia Orchestra, one of the pillars of the American "Big Five. But that's not all. He is also the life director of the Orchestre métropolitain de Montréal, renowned for its excellent recordings and performing most of the time at the Maison symphonique de la Place des Arts.
It is in this same hall that we find the great Canadian philharmonic entity: the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Directed by the great Kent Nagano, who made his mark between 2006 and 2020, the OSM is considered the most prestigious symphony orchestra in Canada and one of the best in America, if not the world. In the same city, let's not forget to mention I Musici, the Montreal Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1983 by cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky and composed of fifteen musicians performing a wide repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary.
Quebec City also has a world-renowned chamber ensemble: Les Violons du Roy. Specializing in the classical baroque repertoire, the orchestra does not shy away from the 19th and 20th centuries from time to time. To see them, you have to go to this beautiful building in Old Quebec, the Palais Montcalm, a very famous hall. It is always a good idea to browse through the program of the latter because it is very varied.
Ontario is also home to opera lovers. There is the iconic Massey Hall, built in 1894 (the oldest in the country), which hosts high quality musical performances, as well as more modern facilities such as the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, with its magnificent 2,000-seat auditorium and home to the Canadian Opera Company, one of North America's most renowned opera ensembles. Ontario also boasts some great ensembles. One of the best examples is the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO), once led by such luminaries as Japan's Seiji Ozawa and Finland's Jukka-Pekka Saraste, which has been performing at Roy Thomson Hall since 1982.

The French song

With one in five Canadians having French as their mother tongue, francophone song is naturally a big national market. A market that is supported not only by a local quota of 65% of French-language songs on French-language radio stations, but also by the possibility of exporting artists to the entire French-speaking world (a pool of about 300 million potential listeners after all). Who here has never heard (about) Céline Dion?
But long before Celine, the woman who was considered French Canada's first singer-songwriter was Mary Travers. Nicknamed "La Bolduc", this illustrious Gaspesian
told like no other the reality of interwar Quebec and the daily life of the little people.
She opened the door to songwriters like Robert Charlebois, Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault - monuments equivalent to Brassens in France - or the more counter-cultural Plume Latraverse and Richard Desjardins. In a different but not so distant register, a few decades later, a whole generation of international stars, more focused on variety, such as Céline Dion (obviously) but also Garou, Roch Voisine, Isabelle Boulay or Lynda Lemay have invaded the airwaves of the world with their hits. Today, it is Coeur de Pirate or Pierre Lapointe who are carrying the revival of this French-speaking Quebec song outside their borders with more intimate and sensitive lyrics.
Anyone who wants to hear songwriters on stage in Quebec must go to a "boîte à chansons". Typically Quebecois, these pocket-sized venues are the preferred stages for local singers. It is here that you will hear the new Félix Leclerc, Gilles Vigneault or Robert Charlebois make their first steps. Some good addresses: Le 2 Pierrots in Montreal, La P'tite Grenouille and Les Voûtes de Napoléon in Quebec.

Popular music

At the end of the Great Depression, Canadian music experienced a momentum similar to that of its American neighbor, notably carried by the success of the "Maharaja of the keyboard", the Montreal pianist and jazz virtuoso Oscar Peterson (1925-2007).
But it was really after the Second World War that the first Canadian musical idol emerged through the figure of Paul Anka. His first song, Diana, brought him instant fame. This marked the beginning of a period in which Canada provided some of the most important and influential artists of their century, first Leonard Cohen (1934-2016), a Montreal-based singer-songwriter and folk figure with a deep tone. Then Neil Young. This Toronto-born artist is the embodiment of folk music and its evolution throughout his career, which has been rich in projects and changes. Whether in a group (like the famous Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young) or via his solo projects (the album Harvest is widely considered as one of the most important in the history of music), Neil Young is perceived by his fans - but not only - as one of the best musicians of the last thirty years. Rounding out the trio is Alberta artist Joni Mitchell, who is also a folk legend. after them, it was the soft-hearted rockers like Bryan Adams (and his hit Everything I Do on the soundtrack of the movie Robin Hood), the edgier ones like Alanis Morissette and the more country ones like Shania Twain who held the top spot at the end of the 20th century. Not to mention Celine Dion, of course.
More recently, Canada has been exported internationally with the albums of Michael Bublé, a modern crooner famous for his cheesy Christmas hits, Nelly Furtado, a great pop star of the 2000s, the muse of producer Timbaland, or Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen.
In addition to these "mainstream" stars, let's not forget to mention a Western Canadian passion: country music. Originating in the Appalachian region of the United States, country music emerged in Canada in the late 1920s, popularized by musicians such as fiddlers Don Messer and George Wade. Although the genre has always appealed to Westerners - it probably fits in well with the wide open spaces of the region - it has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in the 1990s thanks to the success of Canadian artists such as Garth Brooks (a huge star in the field) or Terri Clark and more recently K. D. Lang, an uncompromising Albertan artist who has publicly declared her homosexuality, a rare occurrence in a rather resistant universe.

Current music

Made of more or less the same wood as its fake American twin, the Canadian scene shines by its vivacity and its richness in the field of independent music. We can find here such monsters as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Rufus Wainwright and Arcade Fire, electro champions like Caribou, A-Trak, Kaytranada, Jessy Lanza and Chromeo, eccentric icons like Grimes, the swaggering Mac DeMarco and the superb pianist Chilly Gonzales, and experimentalists like Dirty Beaches, Sarah Davachi and Kara-Lis Coverdale. Not to mention a bunch of other names beloved by indie fans like Alvvays, very sentimental rock, Gord Downie and his cult band for the local audience The Tragically Hip,

Men I Trust, relaxing electro-pop, Daniel Bejar, the one-man band behind Destroyer, Timber Timbre and their dark folk rock, Feist, known for her banter pop, Metric, the descendants of the Pixies, or Broken Social Scene, a rock supergroup made up of Leslie Feist or Emily Haines from Metric.
On the francophone side, it's no more shy since we find nuggets like Marie Davidson and her very mechanical and sensual new wave, Klo Pelgag and his colorful folk, the prodigious glam rock of Hubert Lenoir, the upset indie pop of Safia Nolin (that some people know for her numerous duets with Pomme - whose wife she is by the way) or even the travelled pop of Karim Ouellet.
It's not widely known, but one of the Canadian specialties is rap. In fact, we say "Canadian" but almost all the important rappers come from one city: Toronto. Since the 2000s, it has become one of the capitals of the genre, a status it owes to the rise of the iconic Drake. A protégé of the great Lil Wayne in his early days, he has become in two decades one of the unavoidable figures of world rap, lighting up the whole scene of his hometown in his success. Today, Toronto is, like New York, Los Angeles or Atlanta, a great city of American rap, with stars like The Weeknd or PARTYNEXTDOOR and up and coming stars like Dvsn, Jazz Cartier or NAV and K-os. More recently, a name to remember is Toronto's Mustafa The Poet: his voice and heartbreaking lyrics are a perfect match for his blend of rap and folk.
Given the country's dynamism, you'd think there would be no shortage of places to see a concert. In Montreal, one of the most popular venues for current music fans is MTELUS. Located in the heart of the city, this mythical venue, long known as Métropolis, can accommodate 2,300 people. All the big names in pop music have played there, from David Bowie to Rita Mitsouko to Björk. On the festival side, music lovers all go in unison to Pop Montreal, the meeting place of the international independent scene or, during the winter, toIgloofest, a breathtaking electronic music festival with its feet in the snow.
In Quebec City, the nerve center of the city's creative revival is Pantoum. Studio, concert hall, record company... the place is a must for the local creation. Just like the Summer Festival which, every year, offers for eleven days to combine big names - Metallica, The Rolling Stones or IAM - and young local talents. A great visibility for Quebec City's creation.
In Toronto, the city is the scene of a very good festival, the North By Northeast, Canadian answer to the South By Southwest of Texas, very famous for its music, cinema, comedy and visual arts program, while in Calgary, the place not to be missed is the Broken City Social Club. Widely popular with the city's young hipsters, this is both a bar and restaurant and a concert hall with rock, punk, country and jazz music.

Theater and humor

France cannot ignore it, Quebec is a country in love with theater. Our French stages have staged, adapted, performed and published leading playwrights such as Wajdi Mouawad, Michel Tremblay, Larry Tremblay, Évelyne de la Chenelière, Marie Laberge and Carole Fréchette. Not surprisingly, there are plenty of places to approach Quebec playwrights. In Montreal, one of the most important stages is the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, with its beautiful Italian-style auditorium and its superb productions of major works from the national and international repertoires, from Molière to Koltès, via Shakespeare and Michel Tremblay. Another pillar of the city, the Théâtre du Rideau Vert, has seen the cream of local playwrights declaim their finest prose on its stages over the past 70 years: Antonine Maillet, Michel Tremblay, Gratien Gélinas and Marie-Claire Blais, to name just a few. To be sure to find a new Quebec creation, head to the Centre du Théâtre d'Aujourd'hui, which, since 1968, has been promoting and disseminating local and Canadian French-language drama through creations and revivals of the repertoire.
Also, the city hosts a particularly interesting event every spring, the St-Ambroise Fringe Festival of Montreal, an international festival of free expression combining theater, dance and music.
Given the number of Canadian comedians who have made a career in France, it's easy to see the importance of humor in Quebec. Quebecers take humor very seriously, so much so that a National Humor School was founded in Montreal in 1988. The school has since graduated more than 400 writers and comedians, including Frenchmen (such as Roman Frayssinet) and a host of contemporary names in Quebec humor such as Jean-Marc Parent, Lise Dion, Laurent Paquin, Jean-Michel Anctil, Martin Matte, Guillaume Wagner, François Bellefeuille and Philippe Laprise. Not surprisingly, Montreal, the birthplace of the world's largest comedy event, the famous Just for Laughs festival, is full of places dedicated to comedy. The most prominent in town? Without a doubt, the Bordel Comedy Club, a former brothel (hence the name) that has been converted into an American-style stage where every night five artists perform at a frenzied pace.
Let's finish this tour of Canadian stages with the Quebec art of the circus, and more particularly the Cirque du Soleil. Seeking to breathe a wind of modernity into the discipline without breaking with tradition, this circus of astonishing creativity reconciles with the genre those who thought they had grown tired of it. Disturbingly graceful, his shows travel all over the world but never fail to come back to Quebec for a while.
Less known but just as interesting, other Quebec companies, such as Cirque Eloize or Les 7 Doigts de la Main, also stand out for their originality.