Montreal Cultural Calendar

Yodel Workshop with Margaret Tracteur (Gabrielle N. Bégin)
A friendly introduction to yodeling with
Gabrielle N. Bégin
, the voice behind Margaret Tracteur.
Drawing from American folk traditions, Gabrielle learned to yodel by listening to and imitating artists like Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, the DeZurich Sisters, and Jean Shepard, as well as local yodelers such as Manon Bédard and Guylaine Tanguay.
She shares her surprising vocal techniques through a playful, accessible approach. A workshop to explore your voice, play with vocal registers, and experience a living tradition, whether you're curious, a singer, or already a yodel enthusiast.

The tree-lined backyard of Casa del Popolo serves as a bucolic alternative to CKUT's studios for two live broadcasts featuring festival artists, independent journalists from the Unrigged family and members of the CKUT news collective. Join us in person or at 90.3 FM on Sunday June 21rst & Saturday June 27th from 1-4pm.

Suoni per il Popolo &
UJPO
present:
Son et Solidarité: Sounds for Palestine
A night of Sound and Solidarity to benefit the
Edward Said Music Conservatory
and the
Elham Fund
Intro & Short Film:
The Memory
(al-Zakira)
- Mohamad Malas (13 mins)
I see my family, I meet people. I meet them in my sleep, see them in my dreams. I know they are dead, I see them in my dreams, says the elderly woman. She lives on her own in the small town of Quneitra. She talks to her many cats and chicken, to the film team and to herself. She listens to the stories in the radio. She walks through the rubble.
In World War I she was in Beirut, in World War II as well, also during the wars of 1948 and 1956 she was out of town, stuck elsewhere. In 1967, when the Israeli army occupied the Golan Heights she was in her hometown, Quneitra, the governorates capital. And so was she in the war 1973. When the occupation forces withdrew they destroyed the city to make it inhabitable. Only few individuals returned. The woman says she used to write down things, not about herself, about many things that happened. All is gone, what is left is only the memory.
short film, Mohamad Malas, Syria 1975, 13 min, 35 mm (available in digital format only), Arabic
Director and Author Mohamad Malas | Photography Mohammad al-Qaj | Editor Tala'at al-Maghrebi | Production Mohammad Abu Abdallah
Mohamad Malas
was born in 1945 in Quneitra on the Golan Heights. He is a prominent Syrian filmmaker whose films garnered him international recognition. Malas is among the first auteur filmmakers in Syrian cinema.
Emna Mâaref
is a Tunisian Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist primarily known as an Oud player, live performer, electronic music producer, and DJ. Her practice spans a wide range of experimental music projects and sound design for visual and cinematic works, with her cinema projects selected at major festivals such as TIFF (Canada) and the Carthage Film Festival (Tunisia)
Never Temple
spans the Atlantic: Jaclyn Blumas, and Jessica Deutsch based in Toronto, known for their work with projects E-Prime, Doomsquad, Hush, Ghosttown Studio. Alexandra Duvekot in Amsterdam, a member of Blue Crime and art collective Meduse MagiQ. Within this ever-evolving collaboration, the interconnections of sound, performance, and ritual are constantly explored. Debuting with a series of performances at Amsterdam’s Dok Zaal, Never Temple was then approached to join New York’s 24hr Drone Festival at Basilica Hudson in 2019. This performance showcased their signature midnight ritual—a fusion of ethereal cello and violin, otherworldly vocals, and haunting synths, all adorned in attire suited to the characters present in the world they create. This live performance was featured and recorded at the festival then released via Manchester's Golden Ratio Frequencies label. Incorporating the energy of oceans and rivers, Never Temple seeks to transport listeners into deep sonic landscapes that resonate within the body. With multiple EPs on the horizon, Never Temple’s latest work, Automatic Pilot, released worldwide in May 2025 through Canadian label Halocline Trance and the UK’s DUPE, a subsidiary label of Bella Union. As the project grows, it continues to redefine the limits of experimental music,creating a truly immersive, multidimensional sonic experience.
Jessica Moss
is a violinist, composer, and solo performer based in Montréal. With over two decades of work in experimental music, she first came to prominence as a member of
Thee Silver Mt. Zion
and co-founder of
Black Ox Orkestar
. Since 2015, she has focused primarily on solo composition and performance, creating music shaped by live improvisation, deep listening, and a belief in the concert as a space for reflection and shared experience.
Fifteen Months and Countless
is composed of a rapidly advancing sequence of film photos taken from protests on 8th October 2023 to 16th January 2025 in Montreal and London. Music by Anarchist Mountains, featuring a drone sample of an organ played by Stefan Christoff with sound processing by Jordan Christoff.
The photos mark events from Operation Al-Aqsa Flood to the very broken ceasefire declaration fifteen months and countless lives, and demonstrations of support and direct actions later.
Prints of some of the photos in the film will be available in the art market taking place downstairs during the event, all proceeds to the evening’s fundraisers.
Gambletron
(Tiohtià:ke mtl) is a non-binary sound artist/ musician known for their improvisational noise and work with radio transmission- e.g. Radio "field trips," experimental karaoke, "multi-tonal AM Radio Theremin" and noise performances through large piles of radios. They explore the use of reconfigured radios and live transmission as a sculptural platform for the purpose of performance and environmental exploration. Gambletron's music and artworks almost always function as pirate radio, evocative of subtle methods of resistance to corporate and state control of communications technology.
Performing with an old mic strapped over their mouth and an array of tiny synths and self-built electronics-The music is loud and aggressive. The result is a hyper-kinetic wall of saturated electronic noise among heavy beats… kind of jungle-y these days.
Gambletron is a multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Orkestar Kriminal, with past projects on Constellation Records including Carla Bozulich's Evangelista, Hrsta, Clues, and Matana Roberts' Coin Coin. They also work extensively in sound design for film, dance, and theatre.
Moose Terrific
is an experimental electronics and synth duo composed of Montreal based Sam Shalabi and Tamara Filyavich. The pair focuses on classic synth sounds but with a lot of polyrythmic, symphonic, post-punk, North African and Ukrainian influences and other mayhem. They have released a debut album called 'The Drinks' on the Irish label, FortEvilFruit . Their second album ' Nude Beginning ' was released in 2024 on the Beirut label Ruptured. They are currently mixing material for a 4 and 5(!) release. Tamara Filyavich has been a sound art producer living in Montreal since 2002, in the last seven years, she began performing as an experimental electronic musician focusing one lectroacoustic, sound art and noise music, both as a solo artist and in collaborative projects. Her practice features work that is both composed and improvised and over the years I've come to draw inspiration from early synthesizer music, easter european folklore, Post Punk and more to name just a few influences.

Before the Son et Solidarité: Sounds for Palestine show come support artists and activists at our Art and Action Solidarity Market. All funds raised will go to benefit the Edward Said Music Conservatory and the Elham Fund who directly support Palestinians in Palestine.
With Artists and Activists:
Seif Hajem · Asma Bari · Amine Masmoudi · Fermons le bureau de la honte · Lelelines · Stefan Christoff · Regards Palestiniens · Popolo Press · Rickie Leach · Sletate • Musicians for Palestine Montréal · UJPO · Levantina Shop · Kufiya Souk and more!

Co-presented with
NOW society
and codes d'access.
An Laurence
安媛
is a Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montreal-based musician and composer active in the contemporary/experimental music scene, and performance/multimedia artist.
Her eclectic debut album "Almost Touching" (2022), distributed by people | places | records, has been described as displaying "a graceful vulnerability that transforms [the] compositions into a powerful suite of emotive manifestations" (Foxy Digitalis), "a demanding listen ... never less than engaging" (The Whole Note), where An Laurence "displays her willingness to dive headfirst along each pathway she chooses to explore" (Musicworks magazine).
Her work has been presented by the Quartier des spectacles, Accès Asie, Théâtre La Chapelle, Groupe Le Vivier, the Music Gallery, Phenomena, No Hay Banda, Oh! my ears, Lucky Penny Opera/re:Naissance opera, Chinatown Biennial, Montreal’s maison de la culture, Athens Digital Arts, Tranås at the Fringe, Codes d'accès, among others.
Ianna Book
is a Montreal-based artist with an interdisciplinary background, whose work unfolds at the crossroads of visual arts, performance, and experimental music. Through a decidedly cross-disciplinary practice, she interrogates constructions of identity and processes of emancipation, offering a sensitive reflection on the ways in which one can reclaim one’s personal and collective narrative.
Camille Rosset-Balcer
is a sound artist and clarinettist based in Tiohtiá:ke/ Mooniyang/Montréal. Her practice questions the relation between the perceptible and the invisible, at the edge of imagination and sensitive experience. Inspired by nature, her compositions are influenced by myths, symbols and occult practices. Her work has been presented at numerous festivals and events such as POP Montréal, Nuit Blanche à l’ONF, Montréal Complètement Cirque, le ROSEQ, CAM en tournée and Mise-En Festival (USA).
Antoine Gaudin is a multidisciplinary artist based in Tiohtiá:ke/ Mooniyang/ Montreal. His work takes us on a spontaneous pictorial journey at the boundaries between the real and the unreal. Blending mystical icons, symbolic rituals, macabre solitude, and distorted photographic archives, his drawings and paintings sketch a dark and absurd world where a mind in search of meaning collides with belief systems, the devastating force of memory, and the incoherence of a world in delirium. Active on the cultural and community scene, his work has been presented in various venues such as Casa Obscura, Cheval Blanc, Espace Public, and Mai/son Montréal.
Anju Singh
is a composer, sound artist, and multiinstrumentalist who experiments with dynamics, texture, and pure sound in her composed and improvised work. As a musician, she is interested in extended and experimental techniques as well as re-application of traditional instruments in new contexts, sometimes leading to the development and build of new self-made instruments based on loose concepts of existing instruments. Her source materials include musical instruments, synthesizers, voice, electronics, custom-made/found objects, samples, and field recordings. Anju has presented her work across Canada and internationally including in the US, Brazil, Mexico, Europe, and Japan. In addition to her sound and music practice in areas of improv, experimental music and sound art, Anju also performs under the moniker The Nausea, and is also a metal drummer and guitarist in various projects. Anju is the Curator and Director of Vancouver Noise Fest, a self-funded and independently-run festival committed to noise music that has run for 11 editions.
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.

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’.