Montreal Cultural Calendar

Blacks’ Myths
is a band founded by composer and bassist Luke Stewart with drummer Warren "Trae" Crudup, and has since developed into a sonic research and performance project concerned with the idea of History, of Memory, of the power of creating a tuned state of being. The journey through Sound lies the meditation on the history of blackness, the personal memory lens of an increasingly complex world full of alternate facts and rehashed stories. History thus becomes Mythology, in the ways in which we experience its weighty meanings in our lives. Through accessing the power of Sound, the story unfolds in physical frequencies that can re-tune the sub-conscious being otherwise known as the Spirit. The specific historical themes come from lived experience, stories told.
Toronto-based improviser
Karen Ng
has established herself as a unique musical force nationally and internationally, performing with some of Canada’s most prized artists such as The Weather Station, Andy Shauf, Do Make Say Think and many more. One of Canada’s leading improvisers “with a breathtakingly wide musical scope” (Musicworks) she also collaborates regularly with ad hoc ensembles in the wider improvising scene across Canada, in Europe and the US.
Years after the final chords of their old punk rock band, Vancouver guitarists and composers
Alvaro Rojas and Cole Schmidt
reunite and celebrate with a new LP and repertoire of guitar duets,
Nondual
.
Riffs, counterpoint, drones and improvisations twist and turn in the contemporary style. Songs, minimalism, collage and abstractions are all invited to the block party, and hang around in the park until the streetlights turn on.
Cole Schmidt
composes music for multi-genre improvising psychedelic chamber jazz ensemble SICK BOSS, drone improv unit LETTR OPENR, and the collaborative project with cellist and composer Peggy Lee, FOREVER STORIES OF: MOVING PARTIES.
As a guitarist, he performs regularly with Marin Patenaude, KneeJerk, and Peggy Lee’s Echo Painting. Cole has been curating DIY shows in Vancouver for over 15 years. He was part of the multidisciplinary outfit Sawdust Collector, and works as an Artistic Director for the Vancouver International Jazz Festival and Barking Sphinx Performing Society.
Alvaro Rojas
creates adventurous and colourful music that combines and recontextualizes the world around him. His diverse projects include Afro Peruvian prog - jazz (GRAN KASA), drippy electronic tinged guitar+string quartet soundscapes (MUSIC FOR 22), and an upcoming release on Susie Ibarra’s Habitat sounds label based on translating the patterns of nature.
His concert pieces have been performed by many of Canada’s finest new music groups, including the Turning Point Ensemble, Aventa Ensemble, Microcosmos String Quartet and others, and has collaborated with artists such as Susana Baca and Georgia Anne Muldrow.
Presenting a mega-watt collab from local luminaries
James Goddard
(sax + more),
Jahsun
(percussion)
Markus Lake
(bass),
Cabral Jacobs
(saxophone) &
Engone Endong
(electronics). Hot!

Caro D - Hey Man
The Show Continues (in January) - Help Me to the Finish Line
Dirty Cheetah - Demon Possessed
Co-presented with
NOW Society
Dirty Cheetah
was formed in 2017 by Frank and Pat when he came back from Winnipeg . Both longtime friends were separated when Pat had to move to Manitoba. Frank committed to learn to play guitar so they could start a band if Pat ever came back to Montreal. Obviously, Frank kept his promise and Pat came back. This is how the two greasy hands mechanics started hammering their guitars. They soon got joined by the rhythm section of a roller derby jammer and a rock'n biker.
Pat Panic - Guitar - Lead Vocal
Dirty Frank - Guitar - Vocal
Don Lucas - Bass - Vocal
Lynda Kicks - Drums
Caro D. -
Making music with a strat with overdrive an amp, lots of heart and whoever else is there :)
The Show Continues (In January)
is an eccentric alternative rock band that specializes in theatrical performances and conceptual music, to create a universe of their own.

The 2nd edition of
GET FREE!
- a star-freakin-studded spectacle with musicians from across central & western so-called Canada, Philly, Mexico City and Amsterdam joining forces in spontaneous displays of sonic synchronicity. Here’s the whole lineup here so you can already visualize how these sounds will collide to feed your ears.
Now Society and Suoni Coproduction
DJ PARTY WITH THE EX IN CASA BAR
Combos:
Aleida Perez
(violin) (CDMX)
Pablo
Jiménez
(bass) (MTL)
Christelle Saint-Julien
(harp) (MTL)
Rosalie Chretien
(percussion, voice) (MTL)
Katherina Bornefeld
(drums) (NED)
ben grossman
(hurdy gurdy) (MTL)
Alex Motta
(bass) (CDMX)
Kahero:ton
(piano, guitare) (MTL)
Maya Kuroki
(voice, electronics) (MTL)
Hélios
(violin) (MTL)
Daniel Añez
(Ondéa with FX) (MTL)
Cole Schmidt
(guitar) (VAN)
Adriana Camacho
(bass) (CDMX)
Terrie Hessels
(guitar) (NED)
Karen Ng
(saxophone) (TOR)
Warren “Trae” Cudrup
(drums) (PHIL)
Marilou Craft
(voice, electronics) (MTL)
Alvaro Rojas
(guitar) (VAN)
Arnold de Boer
(guitar, voice) (NED)
Ben Brown
(drums) (MTL)
Meredith Bates
(violin) (VAN)
Sam Shalabi
(oud, electronics) (MTL)
Luke Stewart
(Bass) (PHIL)
Jairus Sharif
(saxophone, electronics) (EDMON)
Adrian Avendaño
(drums, percussion) (VAN)
Allison Burik
(bass clarinet, fx) (MTL)
Andy Moor
(guitar) (NED)

Since 1999,
Quatuor Bozzini
has been a unique voice championing new, experimental, and classical music. A driving force in Montreal's vibrant creative scene and beyond, the quartet cultivates an approach that embraces risk, experimentation, and collaboration, venturing off the beaten path. Through its rigorous standards of quality, it has contributed to the creation of a diverse repertoire that transcends trends and fads. Over the years, it has commissioned numerous works and premiered nearly 500. Its open, collaborative, and artist-led approach has resulted in many innovative and highly acclaimed productions, including interdisciplinary projects incorporating video, theatre, and dance.
1st part
Hypnokaséta
Composition: Yannis Kyriakides
On stage: Quatuor Bozzini, Andy Moor & Yannis Kyriakides
Hypnokaséta is a continuous set of 16 pieces for string quartet and electronics based on dreams that I had during the first few months of lockdown, April-June 2020. Accounts of these dreams are encoded in the music that is played by the quartet and also encrypted in the sound textures that surround this. The pieces alternate between quartet as the foreground and electronic interludes, where solos or duos underpin the soundscape. The name ’cassettes’ refers to a theory of dreams proposed by Daniel Dennett, that says that dreams are loaded into consciousness like a cassette tape, just before waking.
2nd part
Rebetika
Arrangements and Improvisations: Andy Moor & Yannis Kyrakides
Rebetika
Andy Moor (guitar) and Yannis Kyriakides (computer) lovingly deconstruct and reassemble their favorite rebetika music in a set of nine pieces that encompass a wide scope of musical vision. This is an unusual and original take on the so-called "blues" music of the Greek diaspora of the early 20th century. Composer Yannis Kyriakides and guitarist Andy Moor offer their own avant-garde take on this music over the course of the piece. The starting point for these songs is a series of scratchy old bouzouki recordings, which are then sampled and manipulated while real-time guitar is overlaid. This meeting of old musical styles, decrepit recordings and very modern string experiments results in an often very emotive blend, effectively re-writing the past with a combination of reverence and adventurous Tetuzi Akiyama-like musicianship, sounding like an angular, Eastern European Charley Patton on the especially haunting 'Minores’.

Co-Presented with NOW Society, Muff, La Lumière Collective
DahL
is the Montreal-based art rock trio of Nassir Liselle (Anthony McLachlan), Bryan Greenfield, and Edward Scrimger. With roots in post-punk, R&B, and ‘90s trip-hop, the band fuses socially charged songwriting with experimental sound design to craft music as fluid as it is fearless.
Formed in 2014 after the dissolution of their former project Oliverthegreat, DahL has grown into a force of immersive storytelling. Their 2024 debut LP
That’s It
earned critical acclaim from
CULT MTL
and
Exclaim!
, and their unpredictable live performances have shared stages with Suuns, FACS, and more.
Fresh off their international debut at New York’s New Colossus Festival, DahL continue to carve a path through art rock’s uncharted waters. “High Tide” is the latest proof of their uncompromising vision.
Collaborative performance with Guillaume Vallée
Experimental filmmaker and video artist
Guillaume Vallée
graduated from Concordia University with a degree in animation and holds an MFA in Studio Arts – Film Production. He works with film (Super 8, 16mm, 35mm), analog video (VHS, Hi8), and stereoscopic video (red/cyan anaglyph). His audiovisual performances have been presented at numerous festivals in Canada, the United States, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Austria. His experimental films and videos, distributed by Vidéographe, Light Cone, La Distributrice de films, and Winnipeg Film Group, have been screened internationally at several festivals.
https://www.gvallee.com/
Jairus Sharif
is a Black-Canadian multi-instrumentalist, composer and sound artist based in Calgary, AB, Treaty 7 land. His work combines spontaneous composition, sound collage, and free improvisation to create a liberation technology used for self-understanding, freedom of expression, and collective healing. Sharing a truthful message though the free exploration of music is important to Sharif, and blurring his own understanding of immediate reflection, ecstatic improvisation and tranquil focus is at the centre of his current creative work.
Operating the studio as an instrument, his recordings apply improvisation to assist in forging connections between ecstatic jazz, folk traditions, ambient, drone, dub, and noise. Primarily composing, performing, and recording all of the elements found in his music, Sharif has generated 3 full-length albums, numerous self-released projects, EPs and collaborations, and his 2022 album Water & Tools was long-listed for the Polaris Prize.
Involving extended techniques in instrumental improvisation, live-looping and sampling, combined with an evolving collection of electronics, traditional, and non-traditional instrumentation, his live performances offer a glimpse into an ongoing hermetic journey. Sharif has toured his solo and small group projects internationally, and his work has been presented at Canadian establishments such as Western Front, The Music Gallery, and Massey Hall. In recent years he has shared stages with The Sun Ra Arkestra, Farida Amadou and Still House Plants, and performed at festivals across Canada including Suoni Per Il Popollo, send.recieve, Pique, Everyseeker, Calgary Folk Music Festival and Active/Passive.
Adrian Avendaño
is an improvising drummer/percussionist, sound artist, DJ and recordist born and based on the stolen Indigenous territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. As a diasporic Latine artist of Peruvian and Chilean heritage, Avendaño engages in work that centres tradition while seeking new horizons into the future through collaboration and experimentation. Recent projects include Vancouver New Music’s Parallel 03, led by Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich); Roxanne Nesbitt’s Sonic Symbiotic and Thunderous Wondering; Aki Onda’s
Spirits Known and Unknown (Rephrase);
a duo free improv outfit with guitarist Matthew Ariaratnam; Aquiles Navarro Quartet (of Irreversible Entanglements); and Lontananza Quartet (Benjamín Vergara). He currently plays in the experimental contemporary gamelan ensemble, Gamelan Bike Bike. Described by Coastal Jazz as “one of the city’s most intriguing and creatively omnivorous emerging musicians”, he’s performed annually at Vancouver International Jazz Festival since 2020. Furthermore, he plays a vital part in the Vancouver improvised music scene through NOW Society concerts and workshops. As a recordist, he contributed to the first sound archive of the city of Cusco and his soundscape composition work has been presented in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru.
Alejandro Motta
is a classically trained double bassist with a focus on contemporary music, sound experimentation, and stage performance. He is the co-founder of the free improvisation ensemble Algo Cruje and has collaborated with various national orchestras, including the OFUNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra). He recently participated in the performance of Memor I.A. as part of the UNAM Composition Workshop and is currently a member of the CEPROMUSIC Ensemble. His work ranges from traditional repertoire to more free-flowing creation, integrating sound and presence.
Adriana Camacho
, Mexico City
https://www.adrianacamacho.com/
Double bassist, documentary filmmaker, and improviser, she is an active promoter of free improvisation and free jazz in the Mexican and international scenes. Her drive as an improviser has led her to collaborate and record with musicians, poets, and visual artists such as Ana Ruíz, Chefa Alonso, Elliott Levin, Naima Karlsson, Guro Moe, Phillip Greenlief, Daniel Carter, Germán Bringas, Scott Amendola, Lisa Mezzacapa, Anne Waldman, Natalia Pérez Turner, Alex Otaola, and Todd Clouser, among others. In 2022, she participated in the Sounds of Freedom residency at the New York-based record label 577 Archivos. She has performed in improvisation ensembles conducted by Kahil El Zabar, William Parker, and Phillip Greenlief. He has performed at venues such as the Roskilde Festival in Denmark, the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, Café Otto in London, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, Knulp Bar in Trieste, Italy, the Ugo Cara Museum in Trieste, Italy, ¡Resiste! in Vienna, Austria, Monday Improvisation Sessions in Vienna, Austria, Pavilion 2.0 in Venice, Italy, Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco, the Phillip it Gallery in Philadelphia, USA, the Malmö Museum in Sweden, and Kuhlspot in Berlin, among others. SHe has organized concert series and festivals such as Música Libre at the San Rafael Cultural Center, Jueves de Música Libre at the UNAM Center for Complexity Sciences, the 13th Radical Music Showcase at the Museum of Mexico City, and Radio Niagara. He currently plays double bass in several projects: Ana Ruiz and her orchestra Kóryma, No tan Cuerdas, Ronronoise, David Contreras Trio, Sesión Libre Trio and his solo project Loope.

Presented in collaboration with
Bozzini Quartet, Traquen'art, Tone Fest, and Coastal Jazz
The Ex
is a band resolutely focused on the future. After more than 45 years of existence and constant reinvention, they reject all nostalgia, preferring to explore new alliances and continually take on musical challenges far from any comfort zone. Emerging from the punk and squat movements of the late 1970s, The Ex has become an independent and unclassifiable force, performing in over 45 countries and paving the way for significant intercultural collaborations, notably with Ethiopian artists. Returning to the international stage with new compositions and a new album, If Your Mirror Breaks, the band continues to embody vibrant, collective, and inquisitive music—forward in every direction.
Zea
/ minimal, eclectic, strange-edge, poetic
Zea
is Arnold de Boer, born and raised in Friesland, based in Amsterdam. His music is at times intimate, heart felt, poetic, at other times highly energetic, urgent, obstinate and driven on syncopating trance-like guitar play. Arnold de Boer (Makkum, 1974) started Zea as a band in 1995. He plays guitar, trumpet, synths and beat machines and sings in English as well as in his mother tongue Fries (Frisian). In 2003 Zea became a duo and since 2009 Zea is De Boers solo project. He tours all over the planet where he meets a curious audience that might not literally understand but does comprehend the message, feeling and poetry of his -frisian- songs.
Zea
has played more than 2000 concerts in more than 40 different countries on six continents. De Boer releases his music on his own label called Makkum Records. He organises, books, plays, records, mixes, drives, sells, masters and listens completely independent from the main-stream music industry and will continue to do so since he believes the music business is like poison for the soul. Zea has been working with musicians from all over the world. De Boer joined Dutch underground band The Ex in 2009. His work with the Ghanaian kologo star King Ayisoba got world wide attention and they have toured around the world together since 2012.
Zea
is now touring with his latest album In lichem fol beloften (MR44) often accompanied by cello, drums and clarinet. A remix album of his catalogue has been released in 2024 on German Krachladen - Dub Records.
KY Band
makes freak-jazz noise punk about the brutalizing end-times of capitalism, disorganized bodies, lost loves and knowledge gained. Consisting of James Goddard (sax/electronics), Robyn Gray (guitar), Farley Miller (drums) and Ky Brooks (vocals/electronics), their music has been described as 'a genre-straddling outlier punk odyssey'.