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The lineup is not official yet, but there have been some bands confirmed/rumoured. They are Rob Zombie, Emperor, Hollywood Undead and Helix. There's also a rumour that they're adding a hip-hop group ala Rockfest.

2017 Muralfest lineup/program revealed! https://www.facebook.com/MuralMtl/ This is one of my favourite festivals in Montreal, which is considered to be a street-art capital of the world. This event is the biggest of its kind in North America. Interesting news is that it's expanding to Old Montreal this summer, along with more free shows for the public.

The Movement presented by AT&T, hosted by former MLS forward Calen Carr, is a new series from MLS Digital that explores the growing soccer movement and soccer culture in North America In Episode 1, Carr visits Montreal to learn about the city’s unique culture and history — on and off the field. Music: ROWJAY “KUNG FUN MARGIELA" A TRAPPIN APE SOUNDCLOUD.COM/ROWJAYCOB Special Thanks Impact Media Pat Vallee Jordano Aguzzi Yvan Delia-Lavictoire

http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/an-australian-famous-for-documenting-toilets-has-come-to-montreal An Australian famous for documenting toilets has come to Montreal ROBERTO ROCHA, MONTREAL GAZETTE More from Roberto Rocha, Montreal Gazette Published on: February 20, 2015Last Updated: February 20, 2015 5:23 PM EST Mozza restaurant washroom is known for its party ambiance, with disco lights, music and a TV screen. Australian blogger Dan Schaumann searches for the world's best toilets, and this one was suggested to him by the Montreal community on Reddit. Mozza restaurant washroom is known for its party ambiance, with disco lights, music and a TV screen. Australian blogger Dan Schaumann searches for the world's best toilets, and this one was suggested to him by the Montreal community on Reddit. Marie-France Coallier / Montreal Gazette A mantra of making it big on the Internet is to find a niche and run with it. Dan Schaumann, an Australian transplant to Montreal, has found his niche in snapping eccentric toilets. When he’s not making music or working in a supply chain for a multinational, Schaumann scours the cities he visits for its oddest loos, often crowdsourcing tips on Reddit.com. A recent discussion in the Montreal section of the website turned up no fewer than 100 comments. The washroom at L’Avenue restaurant on Mont-Royal Ave., with black light, fluorescent paint, and a TV embedded in the floor was a big favourite. The chaotic graffiti that adorns the urinals at Les Foufounes Électriques on Ste-Catherine St. E. was also a top suggestion, as was Mozza restaurant in the Gay Village, described as “a dance party, complete with disco ball, lights and blaring music.” Montrealers, it seems, are as proud of their washrooms as Schaumann is passionate about them. So far he has documented 10 toilets in the city. “I’m going to make a point of visiting one or two of the suggestions per week until I get through them all,” Schaumann told the Montreal Gazette. He has already documented hundreds of toilets in 30 cities. His efforts have won him close to 1,000 followers on Instagram and extensive news coverage in Boston and Chicago. His passion for flushers started three years ago, as a joke. “I noticed that people could take a photo of just about anything — a leaf on the ground, for example — and they would almost always receive ‘likes’ no matter how common the subject matter was. I wondered if anyone would ever like a photo of a toilet, and indeed, it didn’t take long for someone to show their appreciation,” he wrote. As to why his requests for toilet tips are often fruitful wherever he goes, he has a theory. “The toilet is a day-to-day necessity that doesn’t have a reputation as being particularly captivating, so I think when you encounter a washroom that strikes you as being out-of-the-ordinary, it becomes quite a memorable occasion,” Schaumann said. As a lavatory connoisseur, Schaumann has distilled the common traits of memorable commodes. “Graffiti is the one I love the most, whether it’s a simple witty remark someone has scrawled upon the wall or a punk-style plastering of graffiti across the whole bathroom. I love it when there is an interesting tiling pattern, artwork or decor in the room,” he said. “The whole experience has left me with a new-found respect for the restroom. I can pretty much find something unique in every bathroom I enter now, such as an interesting colour scheme, feature, or sign on the wall.” Map: Dan Schaumann’s top 10 toilets Navigate via the map or click on List to see the full list. If using a computer, swipe to the next item by dragging the mouse across the grey area above the photos. If on mobile, swipe with your finger. For a full-screen map, click here. rrocha@montrealgazette.com twitter.com/robroc sent via Tapatalk

http://www.cnn.com/2014/09/22/travel/best-nightlife-cities/ Montreal is the undiscovered party gem of North America. Beautiful, friendly people, all night dancing to a wide variety of music. And, of course, the summer festivals. Obvious tip, but still good to keep in mind: Don't go in winter. Best place to learn why the French do it better: Wood 35. Good drinks, good food.

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/06/15/o-canada-the-cool-pleasures-of-the-montreal-jazz-festival/

http://www.oprah.com/own-super-soul-sunday/21-Swings-How-Perfect-Strangers-Make-Beautiful-Music-Video

by Tabia Lau (facebook) on Saturday, September 8, 2012 at 6:51pm · My Dear Montreal, I miss you like nothing else. Montreal, your walls of concrete and collapsing bridges, your tardy buses and delayed metros. Your incidents that causent un ralentissement for a duree indeterminee sur la ligne orange in my direction. Oh Montreal, your potholes and signs of ARRET and odd hilltop slopes. Your grey skies and hesitant Autumns with children rattling off numbers in a playground in broken Quebecois and your speedy Springs and torrential snowfalls in February and April. Your french baguettes and hipsters on Ste-Catherine on bixis and plaid hats with red squares. Montreal I miss your Tam tams. I'm homesick for your noise, Montreal. I miss the buses driving by, I miss the pitter-patter of jaywalkers, the french chatter on St-Denis and the gusts of winds up on Mont-Royal. Oh I miss Mont Royal, your blue skies and green lawn, the music of your LARPers and Tam-tams. I miss the Tam-Tams, the self-forming circle and slight haze of 420, the city, the earth, the blades of grass breathing with us as we beat, as a city, as one. I miss your cracking Old Montreal, your warm creperies and bus tours. I miss your dying newspapers and your bill 101. I miss your easy film rating system, the way bus drivers wave to one another. I miss your voice in the metro, the parade of scarves in October, Americans already in puffy coats, girls in UGGS in Westmount. I miss your jewish bakeries and italian pasta, your chinese noodles and greek wraps, your hidden Tibetan cuisine and Indian buffets, Your fresh fruits by Cote-Des-Neiges and buses upon buses at Vendome. I miss this ridiculous bagel feud (St-Viateur ftw), and this slightly less ridiculous language barrier. I miss your music festivals, Montreal. No one loves music the way you do. I miss your Quebecois accent, and your ridiculously small street signs. Your rude old ladies and creepy old men. The violinists on the metros and free hugs in the Old Port. I miss your habs riots and your policemen on horses, I miss your street construction and lights. I'm going to miss your Christmas lights, Montreal. That'll be when this hits hardest, won't it? Christmas. I miss your Christmas lights, Montreal. Rene Levesque and Penfield with large wreaths. I miss your Autumn already, Montreal. It isn't fair I may never live through the entirety of another Montreal autumn, another Halloween night. I love your leaves and gusts and the parks, at night. I miss your chilly raindrops. You know, I will try to collect some of your sunscent, your gorgeous bilingual humid night moisture bring it with me wherever I go whoever I become you will always be home.

En 2011m, il y a eu un désencrassage majeur pour cet édifice de McGill. Nous n'avions pas de fil sur le sujet. Avant : Après :

I couldn't find a thread about this subject so I'm making it. What are some bands/singers/soloists from Montreal (and Quebec in general) that you like? French, English or any other language is ok. Send even the obvious ones! If there is already a thread about this subject then just point to it and remove this one if necessary Thanks a lot!

(Courtesy of Mercury News)

Communiqué de presse pas encore dispo sur le web:

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Lambert+shouts+enough/3317503/story.html#ixzz0uhaLT8LV

Despite its abundance of culture, attendance is low. It’s hard to imagine that cosmopolitan Montreal, with its feted music scene, mountains of arts funding, work-to-live inclination and literary sensibility, would place anywhere but at the very top of a list of Canada’s Most Cultured Cities. An even bigger surprise is to find it near the bottom. True, cultural opportunities abound in Montreal. There’s the world-class Montreal Symphony Orchestra, L’Orchestre Métropolitain, L’Opéra de Montréal, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, a half-dozen music festivals, including the Montreal International Jazz Festival and Pop Montreal, and no fewer than a dozen museums. “But the index isn’t about whether something exists,” says Paul Cappon, president and chief executive of the Canadian Council on Learning. “It’s about whether people actually use it.” And when you crunch the numbers, looking at how many Montrealers actually went to the ballet, for instance, or visited the McCord Museum of Canadian History last year, the locals look a lot more like rubes than the cultural leaders many in the rest of Canada imagine them to be. Only one in four Montrealers visited a museum last year, compared with nearly half of all Victoria residents. More Winnipeggers Scores:http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/20/smart-cities-2010-canadas-most-cultured-cities/ Source:http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/05/20/why-does-montreal-rank-so-poorly/

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette) :eek:

Selon Martin Prosperity Institute The Great Musical North November 12, 2009 The music business is a fascinating example of a creativity-driven industry. Advances in manufacturing and sound recording technology mean that only a small part of the value of the final product – a compact disc or digital download – is generated by manufacturing and distribution. Instead, most of the costs of the music business today are incurred by creative work: writing, producing and performing the music; designing the packaging and branding; and marketing via blogs, magazines, videos and more. This emphasis on creative inputs makes the music industry an excellent research subject for improving our understanding of the geography (and other dynamics) of a broad range of creative industries, from software to medicine to media. While the public perception exists that Canada is a hot spot for music and musicians (from Neil Young to Shania Twain to Kardinal Offishall), a comparison with the global leader in music production – the United States – will help us to separate perception from reality. The most recent period for which detailed and directly comparable data are available is 2007. This Insight aims to improve our understanding of the dynamics of the business by focusing on one particular aspect: the differences between the music industries of Canada and the United States. On a per capita basis, Canada’s music industry dramatically outperforms the US when it comes to the presence of music business establishments (this category includes record labels, distributors, recording studios, and music publishers). Canada has 5.9 recording industry establishments per 100,000 residents, about five times the US figure of 1.2. A detailed breakdown at the metropolitan level can help us to better understand what drives this disparity. To make the scope of our analysis more manageable, we focus on city-regions with populations over 500,000, as they are home to 85% of recording industry establishments and about 65% of the North American population. Using location quotients, a standard industry measure of regional concentration, we find that almost half of the 15 cities with the highest music industry location quotients are Canadian (Exhibit 1). But despite its much lower per capita figure at the national level, the United States has the two top-ranking cities. The first, Nashville, boasts an incredibly high figure due to its heavy specialization in country and pop music. The second, Los Angeles, is the global giant of the entertainment business. US dominance becomes more apparent when we look at size. Recording industry establishments in the US are slightly larger – they have an average of 5.9 employees each, compared to only 5.7 in Canada. But the difference is dramatically more pronounced when it comes to revenue. US establishments earn average receipts of $4.1 million per establishment, compared to only US$540,000 in Canada. So Canada has considerably greater per capita musical activity than the United States in terms of record labels, recording studios, and licensing houses. But the data tell us that the United States has much higher-earning businesses that are more heavily clustered in fewer places – especially Nashville, Los Angeles, and to a lesser extent, New York. While this research is preliminary, we can speculate about what drives these differences. Economic geographers, from Jane Jacobs to Allen Scott to the Martin Prosperity Institute’s own recent analysis, have long noted that growth in creative industries like music tends to be driven by clustering and economies of scope and scale. The concentration of the American music business in a few key cities likely encourages these forces. In Canada, the fact that the music business is more evenly distributed is certainly a positive thing for musicians looking for opportunities in smaller cities. But failure to cluster in a few key centres may be discouraging the Canadian music industry from growing larger and more internationally competitive. [/img]

In keeping with the theme of creating a thread for each place, here's one for 1234. I'll make a bunch of threads for places that come to mind, maybe eventually we'll have a thread for every bar, restaurant, lounge, etc! So, 1234. Nice place, a little small, but it's got two floors and a nice terrasse. Music: Music is good, MC Mario is there, though i've yet to see him and he wasn't there last saturday (i think he's there on saturdays?) Drinks: Drinks are average price and the barmaids are friendly and reasonably fast Ages and dress: Not velvet rope, but not casual either... middle of the road. Average ages are in the 21-28 range although i've spotted both 18 year olds and 35 year olds. Bouncers: Average lineups on a saturday night. 10-15 min wait usually, during rush hour. Bouncers are friendly, never had delays. Cover: I think it's 15$, not sure (the guy lets us in without paying and gives us a bunch of free passes, i don't know if we're the clientele he's looking for or he's just a nice guy..) Misc: my girlfriend says the girl's bathrooms are bad and i find the men's bathrooms are fine, so go figure. Isn't it usually the opposite? Lol. Hip hop and pretty much anything on the top floor, mostly house, electro, etc. on the bottom floor. Pic from last weekend

We ought to give each club, lounge, bar, restaurant, pub, it's own thread with reviews, pictures, info, commentaries and all that kind of stuff! I'll start with Opera since it's been the subject of a lot of talk lately with the possible demolition for the redevelopment of the ilot du monument national. Some pix from last sunday: My review: Good spot, huge, clean, modern, great music, (mostly) classy good-looking people but all this comes with a price - definitely one of the most expensive spots in town.

Voici ma propre vision pour le 2-22 Sainte-Catherine. Features include: 1- Glass-clad building (on all sides!!) 7 storeys with a "pinch in the middle" design intended to harmonize the first 4 floors with the surrounding buildings and to make the LCD news ticker stand out more. 2- Bar/terrasse sur le toit 3- Nightclub au 4ème étage 4- Three storey atrium with tourist info, cultural facilities, ticket booths, etc. 5- LCD news/info tickers, info about upcoming shows, also to give a bit of a mini-times square gradiose feel to everything 6- TV géants 7- Three remaining floors for offices, music rooms, quartier des spectacles administration, whatever, etc. Qu'est ce que vous en pensez? J'aurais du me coucher à 11pm mais depuis minuit je travail la dessus.. j'ai trop eu le fun Ok, là c'est dodo... si le feedback est positif, je vais peut-être continuer plus demain... sinon ben, voilà

The New York Times June 28, 2008 By BEN SISARIO MONTREAL — On Wednesday night, in the last of his three concerts presented as preludes to the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Leonard Cohen, the 73-year-old hometown poet-hero on tour for the first time in 15 years, said that on his last time through town he was “60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream.” Between waves of applause and hollers in French and English, he added, “I am so grateful to be here and to be from here.” Mr. Cohen’s math notwithstanding, hometown pride and musical reverence are at the center of the festival, which opened its 29th season on Thursday and runs through July 6. Billing itself as the largest jazz festival in the world, it attracts one million visitors a year to more than 500 concerts in a three-block music zone downtown and brings about $100 million in revenue to the city, according to Canadian government estimates. With CD sales in a chronic slump, the music industry has been turning increasingly to live events for income, and in recent years big smorgasbord festivals have sprouted up all over North America, aiming to present all kinds of music for all kinds of people. But with a setting ideal for tourists as well as for local residents, and a solid history of eclectic programming — among the attractions this year are Woody Allen, Al Green, Aretha Franklin, Public Enemy and the local debut of Steely Dan — Montreal has held on to a rare prestige. “There is no parallel in North America and perhaps no parallel around the world,” said Scott Southard, a jazz and world-music booking agent who has 15 artists at the festival. “In Europe or Bonnaroo, for instance, they have to erect an entire village in a remote location. Here you have an urban environment without having to reconstruct the venue infrastructure every year.” Begun in 1980 by two concert promoters, Alain Simard and André Ménard, as a way to fill up what was then a dry summer concert calendar, the festival takes over four concert halls of the Place des Arts performing arts complex as well as numerous theaters and clubs around the perimeter. Several blocks of downtown streets are closed for outdoor stages, retail and food booths and children’s activities. Despite the size, Mr. Simard, the president of the festival’s parent company, L’Équipe Spectra, said that “the goal is not to be the biggest jazz festival in the world, it’s to be the best.” But as the festival approaches its 30th season, it is preparing to grow even bigger, with help from a four-year, $120 million government plan to develop the area around Place des Arts. The first phase, to be completed by next summer, includes a 75,000-square-foot park and performance ground, the Place du Quartier des Spectacles. The festival has also been given a 30-year lease and a $10 million grant from the Province of Quebec to renovate a nearby vacant building; when completed it will add one club for use year-round. As a tourist draw second only to Grand Prix du Canada, the Formula One race held in Montreal in early June, the jazz festival has become an important symbol of Montreal’s cosmopolitan lifestyle, said Charles Lapointe, the chief executive of Tourism Montreal, a nonprofit agency financed through a hotel tax. “The jazz festival exemplifies perfectly what we are presenting on the foreign market,” Mr. Lapointe said. “You can celebrate on the streets without any problems with security and express all the pleasure you want.” Civic pride and creative abundance was clear on Thursday, the official opening. (Mr. Cohen’s touring schedule prevented him from being part of the festival proper; he appears at the enormous Glastonbury pop festival in Britain on Sunday.) During the afternoon crowds gradually filled up the Place des Arts campus, slurping on ice cream cones beside the fountain and listening to the sound check for a tribute to Mr. Cohen featuring Chris Botti, Madeleine Peyroux, Buffy Sainte-Marie and others. Darting between indoor evening concerts by the veteran jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater, the young British songwriter Katie Melua and the African performers Vieux Farka Touré and Salif Keita, a visitor could quickly take in half a dozen outdoor concerts, parades and magicians. Two-thirds of the concerts are free. The Cohen tribute drew an estimated audience of 100,000, filling the plaza and nearby streets. But the concerts by Mr. Cohen himself were the clear early highlight. Dressed like a spy in a crisp black suit and fedora, Mr. Cohen, who has said that after years in a Zen Buddhist retreat in California, his lifelong depression has finally begun to lift, sang a sleek and emotional set of nearly three hours. In “Bird on the Wire,” “Hallelujah” and “Tower of Song” he sang of being weighted down by cynicism and starving for affection, but between songs he doffed his hat and smiled broadly for sustained ovations. The festival, a nonprofit enterprise run by the for-profit company L’Équipe Spectra, has an operating budget of $25 million. And though about 18 percent of that comes from national, provincial and city sources, the biggest form of government support is the closing of several blocks of busy city streets. The bulk of the budget comes from corporate sponsorships (40 percent) and sales of tickets and memorabilia (39 percent). The prominence of sponsorships gives the festival a sense of hyperbranding. Looking over Place des Arts, it is almost impossible not to see a giant symbol of General Motors, the lead sponsor: besides GM logos on banners and fliers throughout the grounds, the company also has five displays of new cars for contests, and at least one of the many marching bands wended its way around, wearing black GM T-shirts. Festival organizers say that they have made efforts to ensure that the sponsorship is tasteful and not intrusive. Signs are only seen outdoors, where concerts are free, they say. There is no advertising for the paid concerts indoors, and the organizers say they will not rename the event to suit any sponsor. To create an egalitarian atmosphere, the festival also shuns velvet ropes. “You will never see a V.I.P. area on the site,” Mr. Ménard said. “There’s never a place where people walk and are told, ‘No, that’s not for you.’ The unemployed can stand next to the president of the sponsor company.” For the Cohen tribute on Thursday night, however, there was a small area of bleachers near the stage reserved for the news media and others. But a reporter who lacked the necessary badges was still able to enter with a few kind words. And unlike many large festivals, this one had a network of fenced-off pathways that made quick travel through even a crowd of 100,000 tightly packed fans on Thursday evening easy for anyone needing or wanting to get through. “The vibe is very peaceful,” Mr. Ménard said of the festival. “The fabric of this city is all about the quality of life. The fact is, we have long, deadly winters, so come summertime, everybody is in for a party — but a civilized party.”

Oooooh, Canada A French entry opened the Montreal international fireworks competition this year. Article Tools Sponsored By By HENRY FOUNTAIN Published: June 27, 2008 LATE last Saturday evening, La Ronde, an amusement park that’s just a stone’s throw from downtown Montreal on an island in the St. Lawrence River, seemed an unlikely venue for a world-class competition. Teenagers with the giggles and other signs of roller-coaster overexposure contemplated yet another ride on the Super Manège or Le Monstre. Younger children, slowed by too much barbe à papa (cotton candy) and poutine (that Québécois concoction of French fries, cheese curds and gravy), were willed along by weary parents. The occasional large Fred Flintstone or Scooby-Doo plush doll appeared among the midway crowd, bounty from booths like Frappez la Taupe (Whack the Mole) and Roulé-Boulé (a form of skeeball). GENERATIONS Some families haven’t missed any of the shows for years. But just a few feet away at La Ronde’s small lake, before a grandstand filled with about 5,000 people, with thousands more waiting in anticipation elsewhere in the park, along the riverbanks and on a nearby highway bridge that had been closed to traffic for the occasion, a tuxedoed master of ceremonies introduced Fabrice Chouillier, a French pyrotechnician, and his team. The 24th International des Feux Loto-Québec, the international fireworks competition that runs for two months every summer in Montreal and draws millions of viewers, was about to begin. Mr. Chouillier, whose company, Prestatech-Artifices, is the first of nine competitors this year, walked through the crowd to a control booth at the top of the grandstand, ready to start his computer-controlled extravaganza, built around the theme of space exploration and synchronized with orchestral passages from “2001: A Space Odyssey” and other works. He’d designed the 30-minute show at his office near Paris, had shipped thousands of shells and other fireworks across the Atlantic, and had been preparing them the last five days at a series of bunkers and platforms in an off-limits section of the park. Across the lake, the lights on the park’s Ferris wheel flickered off. Among the crowd, the hawkers selling beer and blinking devil’s horns grew silent. As the opening strains of “The Blue Danube” waltz filled the air, a series of pyrotechnic strobes went off on the far side of the lake. The Strauss faded out, replaced by the “10...9...8” of an Apollo-era countdown, each number embellished by a comet, a shell that leaves a glittering trail in its wake. At zero, a line of fountains started spewing fire, and a loud rumbling began. It was as if the whole lake was about to lift off. For the public, the competition is a chance to see 10 grand pyromusical displays — including a noncompeting show that closes the festivities — throughout the summer. In a city known for its festivals, the fireworks are exclamation marks that punctuate many Saturday nights, and a few Wednesday nights as well. Officials at La Ronde, which was built for the 1967 World’s Fair and is now owned by Six Flags, estimate that last year more than three million people watched the displays. A jury of 19, chosen from the public, evaluates each performance and at the end awards golden, silver and bronze trophies to the top three. There’s no prize money, but that doesn’t really matter: for Mr. Chouillier and the other pyrotechnicians, just being invited to participate in the competition, generally regarded as the industry’s most prestigious, is an honor. “It’s a sort of consecration in the life of a fireworks artist,” Mr. Chouillier said last Friday as his team, aided by La Ronde’s own crew, loaded aerial shells up to a foot in diameter into firing tubes. Or as Stephen Vitale, president of Pyrotecnico, the American entrant in the event this year, put it, “It’s like the Olympics for us.” It’s also a chance for these companies to design a show just for themselves, rather than carrying out some client’s vision. “What’s great about this competition is you have total freedom,” Mr. Chouillier said. OF the hundreds of thousands of people who see each show, only a fraction are paying customers in the park. Many are like Marcel Gareau, a construction worker who with his family had driven from the suburbs and was installed in a lawn chair on the Montreal side of the St. Lawrence a full five hours before the fireworks began. The Gareaus have hardly missed a show in a dozen years, watching over the trees and listening to the soundtrack on their car radio. They’ve seen the work of some of the best fireworks companies worldwide — from China, Australia, Italy, Portugal and elsewhere — but Mr. Gareau has a clear favorite. “The Americans,” he said. “They make the most noise.” The competitors and the jury like a good racket as much as anyone, but for them the shows are more about conveying emotion through kamuro shells, go-getters, tourbillons, Chinese cakes and other pyrotechnic effects, all intricately synchronized with the music. “You have to have a lot of emotion to think about the soundtrack and the colors and everything,” said Martyne Gagnon, who has directed the competition since 1998 and is herself a licensed pyrotechnician. “It comes from the heart.” VANTAGE POINT Fireworks displays are generally best viewed straight ahead from ground level. The recent French show, above, used a lot of surface effects. Enlarge This Image Yannick Grandmont for The New York Times WAIT UNTIL DARK Part of the pre-fireworks entertainment at La Ronde. Enlarge This Image Yannick Grandmont for The New York Times FAIR PLAY La Ronde, on Île Ste-Hélène, initially part of Expo 67. Ms. Gagnon is in charge of choosing the competitors, and she keeps tabs on possible candidates within the small community of professional fireworks companies. She almost always invites teams from Canada, the United States and Australia, a couple from among Europe’s big three — France, Italy and Spain — and usually another European team or two. She tries for one from Asia, and this year she got two, from South Korea and China. Competitors are given a fixed amount of money for materials, but some pay for extra shells and effects out of their own pockets — which may be one reason the Americans make the most noise. The jurors get a day of training in the science and art of pyrotechnics. Magalie Pilon, a doctoral student in physiology who was among those chosen for the jury from 550 applicants this year, was taking the job seriously. “This is a big party here,” she said as dance music thumped in the grandstands a few hours before the show. “But we have to concentrate because it’s important.” “But if they wanted a professional jury they would have asked for it,” she said. “As a member of the public, I know I’m good.” That confidence comes from having seen almost every display for the last six years. But she used to watch from the bridge, where her family had a special spot each week. As a jury member, she now has a prime seat for every show for herself — and for one guest. “Let’s just say that now I am very popular,” she said. “I could ask for anything. Maybe I’ll ask for somebody to wash my car.” THE grandstands offer certain advantages over the view from the bridge or the riverbanks. Many of the low effects can’t be seen from far off. And the shows are designed to look best from straight on. Mr. Chouillier used plenty of low effects, starting with the fountains that, accompanied by the rumble of a rocket engine, seemed to simulate the launching of a Saturn V. Then it was on to “Also Sprach Zarathustra,” with exploding mines and other effects piercing the sky, choreographed to the piece’s famous kettledrum passages. The “Star Trek” theme followed, with glittering showers of tiny stars looking for all the world like what Captain Kirk disintegrates into when Scotty beams him up. There were brilliant flashes, head-throbbing bangs, huge groups of flares in red and green, chrysanthemums in red, white and yellow and, during passages from “Mars, the Bringer of War” by Gustav Holst, dozens of small green flares that seemed to dance on the water like little green men. More comets crisscrossed the sky in perfect time with the music. And at 30 minutes the whole thing ended in a barrage of pale gold-and-white shells, accompanied by more music from “Star Trek.” As the smoke drifted, the final sounds were heard: the five-tone alien signal from “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Afterward the verdict among some of the veterans was that the show was probably not a trophy winner — that the choice of theme and music was a bit clichéd, that the effects weren’t startling enough, that the all-white finale, though elegant, lacked a certain drama. But back at a makeshift beer hall where team members and others relaxed and discussed the show, Mr. Chouillier looked happy and relieved. “My big fear was that something would go wrong, and it didn’t,” he said. And judging from the hoots and hollers in the grandstand, the show was a crowd pleaser. “It’s the best we’ve ever seen,” said Mark Jeffries, a Floridian who with his family had come to Montreal to visit his mother. “There’s some fireworks we’ve never seen before.” His 11-year-old daughter, Carlin, had no problem with the finale. “In Florida they shoot off all of them,” she said. “They kind of overwhelm you. This was different. Just nice and white.” VISITOR INFORMATION L’International des Feux Loto-Quebéc continues every Saturday through Aug. 2 and on three Wednesdays — July 23 and 30 and the closing show, on Aug. 6. The countries represented include Australia, Austria, China, Italy, Portugal and South Korea; the United States entry’s show is on July 30. Fireworks begin at 10 p.m. Grandstand tickets, which include all-day park admission, range from 44.90 to 56 Canadian dollars (about the same amount in American dollars) for people over 4-foot-6; it’s less for those under that height. After 5 p.m. tickets are about half price. La Ronde is best reached by public transportation. The Papineau Métro station, on the Orange Line, connects with the 169 bus, which goes to the park’s front gate. Alternatively, the Yellow Line stops in Parc Jean-Drapeau on the other side of the Île Ste-Hélène; it connects with the 167 bus to La Ronde, or a 15-minute walk will get you there (and you’ll pass the geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller for Expo 67; it now houses an environment museum). After the show, walking to the Yellow Line is the best way off the island. Free places to watch the shows include the Jacques Cartier Bridge, which closes to traffic at 8 p.m.; the Old Port of Montreal; and around Boulevard René-Lévesque north of the bridge. http://travel.nytimes.com/2008/06/27/travel/escapes/27fireworks.html?pagewanted=2&hp

Montréal - Cool with a French accent 4 June 2008 Lewis might be driving this weekend in Montreal - but what does the city have to offer for a weekend break? Forget the “Paris of North America” cliché — Montréal, QC has always sashayed to its own unique Latin beat. Roaring back to life after more than a decade of economic woes and separatist turmoil, the 21st century has seen the city’s distinctly Québécois melange of the traditional and the hip blossom. There are buzzy new bohemian enclaves. The fashion, food and music scenes are on fire. Chic boutique hotels have upped the romantic ante. What hasn’t changed is Montréalers’ focus on leisure and their penchant for long afternoons and evenings over wine or coffee. Sound like a population hankering for endless weekends? Mais oui! Summer’s the time to visit, when the city is unleashed from a long winter and shifts into overdrive with a frenzied outdoor itinerary. Downtown sidewalks are crowded till the wee hours as the annual Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (montrealjazzfest.com) spills free jazz onto the sweltering pavements, and Just for Laughs, the world’s biggest comedy festival, lets you yuk it up in both official languages (justforlaughs.ca). Add a side trip to Québec City, celebrating its 400th anniversary with great fanfare throughout 2008. Celine Dion is scheduled to be there, as well as Cirque du Soleil. And the world’s biggest outdoor multimedia architectural projection — dreamed up by Robert Lepage and Ex Machina — will be splashed across giant grain elevators nightly at the Old Port. myquebec2008.com But back to Montréal. Start your weekend with a bowl of café au lait and a croissant or a bagel with cream cheese and lox — Montréal’s cross-cultural breakfast specialties — on an outdoor terrace while you make your plan.In Montréal, it’s all about neighbourhoods, and each has its own distinct character. Pick a boulevard, pick a theme (traditional, hip, funky, chic, ritzy, sporty, gay), then explore the collage of villages that make up Canada’s second-largest city. Old Montréal Ignore the touristy overtones and head for the gas lamps and classic cornices of Old Montréal. It’s a cobblestoned warren of tiny galleries and boutiques. Get your history at the stylish Pointe-à-Callière Museum of archaeology and history perched atop the original settlement’s ruins: 350 Place Royale, pacmusee.qc.ca. Linger outdoors to enjoy the buskers and painters or head indoors for wearable art at the eclectic Reborn: 231 rue Saint-Paul West, reborn.ws. A fave for casual lunch is Olive et Gourmando, an inspired deli/bakery gone affordably gourmet: 351 rue Saint-Paul West, oliveetgourmando.com. St. Denis Montréal is a walking town in the true European sense, and the best stroll is down French-flavoured rue Saint-Denis. Eavesdrop on the locals’ twangy, slangy peppered-with-English lingo at the very Left Bank L’Express over steak frites or duck confit salad: 3927 rue Saint-Denis. Shop at hip Dubuc, HQ for Montréal’s high-profile men’s and women’s wear designer, Philippe Dubuc: 4451 rue Saint-Denis, dubucstyle.com; or hunt the latest French styles at bargain prices at Paris Pas Cher: 4235 rue Saint-Denis. Arthur Quentin’s is the mother of all lavish French kitchenware stores: 3960 rue Saint-Denis, arthurquentin.com; and Bleu Nuit across the street stocks decadent bedroom and kitchen linens from France: 3913 rue Saint-Denis. Plateau Pub crawl through the fashionable Plateau District by following Mont-Royal Boulevard. Start at Billy Kun, with live music from classical to jazz, in an unpretentious “tavern chic” environment that includes stuffed ostrich heads mounted on the walls: 354 Mont-Royal East, bilykun.com. Dine at one of the city’s popular BYOB (bring your own wine) neighbourhood bistros; for example, intimate La Colombe, where chef Moustapha cooks up a fabulous French chalkboard table d’hote menu with influences from his native North Africa: 554 Duluth East. St. Laurent Boulevard/Mile End Funky Saint-Laurent Boulevard is the city’s east/west, French/English divide. This busy lifeline between Chinatown and Little Italy is a jumble of Old World and edgy side by side. It runs north into once-decrepit real estate undergoing a renaissance called Mile End, a vaguely defined area of everything from retro furniture to local designer boutiques. Wallpaper magazine recently dubbed it Montréal’s hottest neighbourhood. The Ex-Centris theatre is a hotbed of Indie film screenings where ticket agents’ heads are surreally projected onto video screens: 3536 boulevard Saint Laurent, ex-centris.com. Casa del Popolo is a vegetarian café that morphs into an indie music Mecca at night: 4873 boulevard Saint-Laurent, casadelpopolo.com. Then there’s down-to-earth Schwartz’s Montreal Hebrew Delicatessen, the high temple for lined-up devotees of Montréal smoked meat: 3895 boulevard Saint-Laurent, schwartzsdeli.com. Old Port/Lachine Canal Want to burn off all those foie gras and crème brulée calories? Rent a bike at the Old Port at Montréal on Wheels: 27 de la Commune East, caroulemontreal.com. Follow the leafy bike path along the Lachine Canal that has gone from gritty-industrial hub to red-brick, factory-loft-lined park. Pass the geodesic dome and block-shaped Habitat 67, vestiges of Montréal’s Expo 67, and watch for one of the city’s best farmer’s markets, the 1930s Atwater Market, where you can pick up a baguette and cheese for a canal-side picnic. Overnighting: Old Montréal has, in recent years, become the city’s hotspot of boutique hotels with some of the most original accoms in town. Hotel Nelligan 106 Saint-Paul West, hotelnelligan.com. The classic feel of Old Montréal lingers in the very modern, brick-wall, loft-style rooms, each unique. Hôtel Gault 449 Sainte-Hélène, hotelgault.com. Minimalist, spacious and very de rigeur. Concrete and modern designer furniture make this a hipster magnet. Le Petit Prince 1384 Overdale, montrealbandb.com. A B&B with quirky style in a renovated house, each room colour themed. Funky and different with a great breakfast included. Dining: Le Club Chasse et Pêche: 423 Saint-Claude, leclubchasseetpeche.com. High-end French cuisine, one of the city’s best in what The New York Times called a “Gothic-minimalist hunting lodge.” Toqué: 900 place Jean-Paul-Riopelle, restaurant-toque.com. Chef Normand Laprise has become a Montréal icon thanks to his market-based contemporary cuisine. Au Pied de Cochon: 536 Duluth East, restaurantaupieddecochon.ca. Hardcore Québécois cuisine from pigs’ feet to poutine, taken upmarket by renegade chef Martin Picard. For more information on Montreal, go to Canada.travel. http://www.easier.com/view/Travel/Travel_Guides/article-182940.html

'The city is mine' The home secretary Jacqui Smith says she feels unsafe walking London's streets after dark, and, undoubtedly, she's not alone. What a shame, says confirmed nightwalker Kate Pullinger - how could anyone not love a great city at night? Tuesday January 22, 2008 The Guardian I've always loved the city at night, even before I knew what it was like. I come from a rural suburb of a small town on the west coast of Canada and I spent my adolescence dreaming of cities in the dark. To go anywhere when I was a kid you had to drive; there was no public transport. And when you got there, wherever There was, there wasn't anything to do, except drink. I knew that when I finally made it to the city the night would sparkle and shine and pulse and that when I walked down the street, night music - Roxy Music, the Velvet Underground, Curtis Mayfield, Ultravox even - would accompany me. My first ever city was Montreal, where I spent a dissolute 18 months struggling with the concept of university. Montreal at night was always romantic but bipolar: a continuous street party during the summer - hot sweaty nights in cafes and bars that spilled on to the streets; phenomenally cold, encased in ice, in the winter. I would bundle up in multiple layers before heading out. In January and February I would wear both my coats. Montreal at night involved a lot of trudging, carrying your party shoes in a bag, stamping the snow off your boots. Falling snow at night in the city is irresistible; it squeaks and crunches beneath your boots on the pavement and comes to rest on your eyelashes and cheeks like glitter, only even more precious, more fleeting. Walking by myself through Montreal at night was to feel a kind of freedom that was completely new to me - the people are sleeping, the city is mine, all mine. Through the frozen air I could hear and see myself breathing - walking at night always makes me feel more aware of my own physicality somehow; it's the unexpected silence, the unsolicited peace - and my joy at escaping the suburbs was complete: I'm alive, I'm my own person, and I'm at home in the city. After Montreal I came to London, where a lot of women are afraid to walk alone at night. When Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, said at the weekend that she wouldn't walk at night in Hackney, or Kensington and Chelsea, she was just being honest, despite her aides' subsequent attempts at spin. In a world where we are afraid to let our children cross the street by themselves, this is hardly surprising. Our levels of fear bear little relation to the statistics - Smith was right that crime rates have fallen, too - but we are told to be afraid, so many of us are, both despite of and because of our experience. But not me. For me, growing up was all about becoming free, becoming who I wanted to be, not who other people expected me to be, and London was a part of that. It was the 1980s and London had an urgency to it, made all the more vivid by the fight to the death between that era's David and Goliath - Ken Livingstone and Margaret Thatcher. I was young and broke and needed to save my money for pints, books and movies: walking was the cheapest way to get around and most nights out ended with a long walk home. The city was huge, and foreign to me, and I needed to map it out in my mind by stalking the twisty streets with their ever changing names: Eversholt Street becomes Upper Woburn Place becomes Tavistock Square becomes Woburn Place becomes Southampton Row becomes Kingsway all inside 15 minutes. It was only through walking that this would ever make sense, and it was only when walking at night that I witnessed the secret lonely heart of the city; for a time it seemed as though every other doorway in the centre of town was temporary shelter to at least two homeless people. Alone at night I could repeat the street names and practise the English-as-in-England words that were new to me: "wanker", "loo", "pants", "tuppence", "sacked", "fanciable", "shag". I had a bicycle some of the time and there is nothing to match riding a bike by yourself through the streets of London late on a summer's night when the air is so soft it feels like velvet and your wheels spin and your hair gets messed up under your helmet but you don't care and you have to peel off the layers to stop yourself sweating. I was living in Vauxhall and working in Covent Garden at a catering job that required an early start before the tube was running, and crossing Lambeth Bridge on foot at 5am provoked in me a kind of epiphany, an ecstatic communion with the city and its only-just-buried layers of history. At night it's as though the city's history comes alive, bubbling up from where it lies dormant beneath the tarmac: when the crowds are gone, modernity slips away, and the city feels ancient and unruly. How could anyone not love London late at night, or early in the morning? How could the wide black Thames with the city reflected upon it not remind you of everything that is most desirable and glamorous in life? But sinister, too, of course, and this is part of what makes the city at night such a grown-up, adult, provocative space. There are parts of town that always have been, and always will be, creepy. In London: the backend of Whitechapel. Stockwell on a rainy night. Acton when you're a bit lost. And Hampstead, because everyone there seems to go to bed very early. In attempting to recant her comment about not walking alone at night in Hackney, Smith named the parts of the city where she does feel comfortable (for her, Peckham), and this is something that most women would recognise: we make our routes, we do what we feel comfortable doing, and it's not possible to ask anything else of us, home secretaries included. I've lived in Shepherd's Bush, west London, for 11 years now and I always feel safe on the Uxbridge Road. It's one of those wide, long streets that is full of life, full of commerce and connection, full of people I sometimes know and often recognise. The walk home from the tube feels safer than the shorter walk home from White City, with its looming football ground and empty pavements, cars zipping past too quickly. Just before Christmas I walked home by myself from a party; several people asked if I would be OK before I left. When I got outside the night was foggy and the street lamps glowed through the freezing mist; a black taxi passed with its yellow light blazing, the low purring sound of its diesel engine reassuring. I wandered along, a bit drunk, bundled up, and the residential streets were completely empty. When I got into bed I put my cold hands on my husband's warm back and woke him up, happy. I wear sensible flats and carry my party shoes in a bag still, not because of the snow, obviously, and not because I want to be able to run away if I can, but because I like to do my walking in comfort. I don't walk at night as much as I used to, but that's because of children and work and the fact that the days and nights aren't as long as they used to be. It is true that I would not take out my mobile phone on a dark street for fear that someone might think it worth snatching. It's also true that I do not listen to music through headphones when I walk by myself, but that's because I've never liked listening to music through headphones: it has always made me worry that someone is about to sneak up behind me, even when - or especially when - I'm lying on the couch in an empty house. Plenty of people don't love London, I realise that, and plenty of people probably love it even less at night; I'm well aware that it might take only one incident for me to change my mind about walking alone at night. I have been mugged in London, but that was in broad daylight in Finsbury Park on the way to the tube station; I lost volume one of a two-volume Complete Plays by Shakespeare that my mother had given me. The young man who pushed me against a brick wall to wrestle my bag away from my shoulder had a look of desperate determination; the police later found the bag and the wallet, but not the Shakespeare. I've walked these streets for 25 years now. I'm not a young woman any more - aren't the young more likely to be victimised? - and I'm fairly tall - aren't little women more preyed upon? - and on dark winter nights I walk quickly with a hat jammed down over my head. But when I look up from the pavement and see the sparkling lights, I hear the night music; could it be that I am who I always wanted to be, and the city at night belongs to me? By the light of the moon ... Nightwalking across Britain's cities Birmingham As a proud Brummie and shamelessly debauched hedonist, I, and the city I truly love, properly come alive at night. Birmingham has more canals than Venice and those moon-washed nightwalks along the most famous ones at Brindley Place and Gas Street Basin are just as magical as the Italian city's finest. By day, Birmingham's Victoria Square and Centenary Square are thick with office workers, tourists, shoppers, teens and trolls. But after dark you can peacefully appreciate the floodlit beauty of the historical council house, the Floozy in Jacuzzi fountain (well, that's what we locals call her, anyway) and Iron Man sculpture, the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Victorian listed buildings on Colmore Row - before popping into the late-night bars One Ten or the once-famous cigar lounge at the Hotel du Vin. St Paul's Cathedral and Square are intoxicating before dawn - not simply because of the drinking opportunities, but because of the path they lead towards the charm bracelet streets of the Jewellery Quarter. I've often done a wee-small-hours West Midland's Audrey Hepburn impersonation by peering into the hundreds of jewellery shops there. There are plenty of midnight munching opportunities - get a night owl down to Ladypool Road, the heart of the city's Balti Belt and where neon restaurant signs blaze above hordes of my fellow, friendly nocturnal buddies. Wersha Bharadwa Manchester Go to eat in Chinatown, and leave around midnight. Stroll back under the gloriously garish Imperial Arch. The unmistakeable smell of oil on hot wok will linger but slowly the grid of streets will wind down and sleep. Emerge into St Peter's Square and hear the hoot of the last tram passing in front of the Pantheon-like circular central library (which has been known to offer small-hours tours of its basement stacks). Move on into Albert Square and wait for the midnight bongs from the clock of the floodlit town hall, Manchester's glorious statement of civic one-upmanship. Then on to Cross Street (where the former home of the Manchester Guardian was long ago replaced by Boots) and turn left into King Street, where the fashion shops doze and dream of bigger profits. Cut through towards St Ann's church and the square after which it is named. If the circular Royal Exchange theatre had a curtain, it would have come down long ago, but memories of entrances and exits long ago live on. Then, past brash Harvey Nicks and Selfridges, to the silent route between the cathedral and the old corn exchange to Cathedral Gardens. Take a seat and gaze at Urbis, the glass ski slope that has become an icon. Behind you, at Chetham's school of music, a sleepless student may entertain you with a Bach partita. David Ward Leeds The best thing to be in late-night Leeds is a bird. Floodlighting is pretty inspired in the city centre generally, but specially good at rooftop level. Get the lift or stairs up any high building - the uni campus has a good selection - and drink it all in. At ground level, the ginnels off Briggate and Vicar Lane are a wonderful maze by moonlight; unchanged since Atkinson Grimshaw did those great Victorian paintings, except nowadays there are lots more bars and places to eat. Try the riverside, too, spooky if it gets too late but lively enough till at least midnight. Cross the canal from Water Lane and thread back through the Dark Arches where the river Aire crashes about beneath the train station. Best for quiet strolling is Kirkstall, with its subtly lit Cistercian abbey, just off the always-busy A65. You can swim at Kirkstall baths till 10pm, get a tapas at Amigos, a Leeds end-terrace that is forever Spain, and then potter across the road and spend as much of the dark as you want to in the 12th century. Headingley is great for strolling, with more shortcuts and alleys through the student-colonised redbricks round St Michael's and the Skyrack and Original Oak pubs. Martin Wainwright Bristol By day, Bristol's harbour area can feel like a place of local authority and corporate regeneration. Fair enough, that's what it is. But by night the magic of the docks returns with the youngsters and bohemians who arrive to party. Walk along the cobbles on Welsh Back alongside the Floating Harbour. Turn into Queen Square with its the wonderful Georgian architecture - much more subtly lit than their counterparts in touristy Bath, and more glorious for it. Look out for the bohos-made-good and London refugees dining in the hip dockside eateries. Cross Pero's Bridge to the Watershed media centre. The laptop brigade who make use of the wi-fi access will have gone, replaced by the art crowd with their red wine and movie talk. The Falafel King van on the Centre is a great, much cheaper alternative to the riverside restaurants. Or get away from the city centre and head to Montpelier. Again, it's a people-watching place - this is eco-trendy territory. Supper at the One Stop Thali cafe, where the locals take their own tiffins to be filled with steaming curry. Walk up to the Cadbury House pub, multiple award winner. And don't forget Clifton. Sorry to be obvious. By day, the Avon gorge can be a little grubby, especially in the winter. After dark, the suspension bridge gleams and the chasm below yawns. Steven Morris Edinburgh Edinburgh's more intimate scale makes it a great city to explore on foot, as long as you don't mind the odd uphill jaunt, and there's no denying the city's beauty at night. There are obvious highlights: a walk along Princes Street gives a great view towards Edinburgh Castle, which is illuminated at night, as are most of the noteworthy monuments, while the Mound has the National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy Building at its foot - with their regal columns, these buildings look pretty spectacular when floodlit - and the impressive headquarters of HBOS, which includes the Museum on the Mound, at its top. Once you're up there, there are guided walks through the Old Town - the night-time ghost tour routes focus around the Royal Mile - while there are less obvious highlights if you head north into the New Town, which is mainly residential and has some of the finest classical Georgian architecture in the country. There are beautiful terraces to explore, such as Royal Circus or Moray Place, and you can admire the architecture while catching glimpses inside where people haven't closed over their tall Georgian shutters - a bit nosy, but who can resist? Wrap it up with a warming drink in Kay's Bar, a cosy pub in an early 19th-century building on Jamaica Street West, tucked in the New Town's heart. Fiona Reid http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2244671,00.html

Montreal's new music defies category January 22, 2008 By Jim Lowe Times Argus Staff Blair Thomson, second from right, applauds members of the Musica Camerata Montréal as they applaud him after the premiere of his “Don’t be afraid of …” on Saturday at McGill University. Left to right are violinist Luis Grinhauz, pianist Berta Rosenohl, flutist Marie-Andrée Benny, cellist Mariève Bock, Thomson and violist Lambert Chen. Photo: Jim Lowe/Times Argus Musica Camerata MontréalFor its next concert, Musica Camerata Montréal will present "Music of Central Europe," Saturday, March 15, at McGill University's Redpath Hall, 3461 McTavish (at Sherbrooke) in Montreal: Smetana's Piano Trio, Opus 15; Kodaly's Sérénade, Opus 12; and Julius Zarebski's Piano Quintet, Opus 34. Tickets are $30 Canadian, $20 for students; call (514) 489-8713, or go online to www.camerata.ca. MONTREAL – If there is any "Montreal style" of composition, it couldn't be discerned at Saturday's concert by the Musica Camerata Montréal at McGill University's Redpath Hall. The veteran chamber ensemble presented compositions by five contemporary Montreal composers – Serge Arcuri, Jacques Hétu, Robert Rival, Blair Thomson and Claude Vivier – but the works were so diverse in style that there seemed nothing in common save for the traditional instrumentation. The concert honored the Canadian Music Center, celebrating its 35th anniversary, which makes some 15,000 Canadian scores available free to performers. All composers but Vivier, who died in 1983, were in attendance. Most fascinating was the work commissioned by Musica Camerata, "Don't be afraid of …" by Thomson (b. 1963), heard in its premier performance. Full of color, mostly subtle pastels, the one-movement piece for flute, clarinet, piano and string quartet opened with ethereal sounds, edged along by quietly sliding pitches. It was atmospheric, but ever-changing in tonality – and atonality – but then things picked up, with a virtuoso violin solo contrasted by pizzicato among the other strings. It became driving with just a bit more stridence, increasing in velocity – coming to a sudden stop. The up-and-coming Thomson was born and trained in Toronto, but now makes his home in Montreal. A protégé of the late Canadian composer James Tenney (this work is in his memory), Thomson used 21st century rhythmic and harmonic language – with soft edges – and a lot of imagination. Now in its 38th year, the Musica Camerata Montréal, one of the city's most respected chamber ensembles, uses the mix-and-match style of New York's Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in its varying instrumentation. Led by violinist Luis Grinhauz, longtime assistant concertmaster of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the ensemble has made a name for itself performing unusual chamber works of the 19th and 20th century. The ensemble's high level of playing was quite evident as it moved into the 21st century. "Les furieuses enluminures" by the Montreal born-and-bred Arcuri (b. 1954) was episodic in nature and often quite exciting. The respected Quebec composer said he was inspired by Medieval illuminations on a church ceiling in Florence. Written for flute (and piccolo), clarinet, piano and string quartet, it opened with striking clashes of chords, followed by the piano supporting a haunting melody played by the others. It was a constant struggle between tonal and atonal, as he wove a colorful tapestry of solos and various groupings, building in excitement – finally fading out with barely audible flute notes. "Pièce pour violon et clarinette" by Vivier (1948-1938), one of Montreal's most respected composers, was hardly new to the Musica Camerata. The two who played it – Grinhauz and Michael Dumouchel, the OSM's second clarinet – recorded the musical "storytelling" work. At times in parallel, other times in tandem, the two engage in pithy and spicy conversation throughout this little work. It was a delight. The three-movement Serenade, Opus 45, for flute and string quartet, by Hétu (b. 1938), one of Montreal's best-known composers, didn't challenge the audience much, but it gave pleasure. The opening Prélude was light, lyrical, tonal. The larger-scale Nocturne, opening with a viola lament, mixed the conversational and lyrical and indulged in the passionate, finally proving haunting. The scherzo-like Dance was light with a touch of stridence – but not enough to bite. Most traditional was the 2005 Piano Trio by Rival (b. 1975), who is not a resident of Montreal but wrote the work while living in the city. The opening Allegro resoluto was substantial and powerful in a Brahms-like way, its drive interspersed by moments of lyricism. The slow movement, Elegy: Largo, was very moving, with lyrical strings, intense piano, then joining in an almost romantic style. The final Dance: Andante, despite a mundane theme, was full of dance rhythms, spiced by unexpected moments such as an atonal piano contrasting the tonal strings, and nice lyrical interlude. Throughout, the writing was largely tonal but with interesting rhythmic juxtapositions. The Rival benefited from the sensitive and sure-fingered piano of Berta Rosenohl. Marie-Andrée Benny, principal flutist of the Metropolitan Orchestra, Montreal's second, was sensual as well as dexterous in Hétu's Serenade. Violinists Grinhauz and Van Armenian, violist Lambert Chin and cellist Mariève Bock were the able string section. Certainly there were a few intonation and ensemble slips, but this was an able, substantial and convincing performance of some rewarding music. http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080122/FEATURES14/801220317/1011/FEATURES02

Montreal musicians dominate Polaris shortlist Jul 11, 2007 07:44 PM Ben Rayner Pop Music Critic The votes are in and, apparently, Toronto is no longer quite the centre of the Canadian musical universe. Only expat-Torontonian Leslie Feist - who actually hails originally from Calgary - muscled her way onto the shortlist for the second annual Polaris Music Prize, unveiled yesterday afternoon during a reception on the Drake Hotel's rooftop patio attended by such homegrown rockers as Joel Plaskett and Olga Goreas of the Besnard Lakes. The tres au courant indie scene in Montreal, represented by five acts including rising stars Arcade Fire and Patrick Watson, dominated the final voting. More than 170 music writers and broadcasters from across the country who were polled last month on their favourite Canadian albums released between June 1, 2006 and May 31, 2007. The rest came from points as varied as Hamilton, Halifax, Calgary and Sackville, N.B. "It was an arduous process," said Polaris founder Steve Jordan. "We saw some records move up and down in the balloting as time went on, and I think people really gave serious consideration to their choices. It's going to be a real challenge to pick a winner ... All of these records are 'epics' in some way." The Polaris shortlist, in alphabetical order, is as follows: Arcade Fire, Neon Bible. The Besnard Lakes, Are the Dark Horse. The Dears, Gang of Losers. Julie Doiron, Woke Myself Up. Feist, The Reminder. Junior Boys, So This is Goodbye. Miracle Fortress, Five Roses. Joel Plaskett Emergency, Ashtray Rock. Chad VanGaalen, Skelliconnection. Patrick Watson, Close to Paradise. The winner will be determined after a day of hard-fought argument between a small group of final jurors on Sept. 24 and announced that same night during a gala concert. The prize - taken last year by Toronto's Final Fantasy for his album He Poos Clouds - is $20,000 cash. A Polaris compilation album featuring tracks by each of the nominees will also be released on Aug. 28.