July Issue No.2
Where to go, what to see, and who to hear — your guide to what’s happening across Southern Ontario
Sure this summer’s festivals are winding down, but this issue has a full plate. We launch KITSCHEN, our new culinary arts series that reclaims kitsch as a critical lens and scores restaurants on everything except the food. We also introduce UPSTREAM, a video interview series on the politics behind the arts, featuring Mayor Olivia Chow of Toronto.
Elsewhere, Élisabeth Pion makes her Toronto debut at Koerner Hall for the TSM Festival, and the Spotlight Events section covers everything from the Festival of Friends’ 50th anniversary in Hamilton to a durational choreographic installation inside a sonified greenhouse at SummerWorks. The job board, the poll results, and a vote for KITSCHEN’s first restaurant profile round out what is, as always, your best guide to what’s happening across Southern Ontario.
Cast your vote in this issue’s poll:
Results from our previous poll:
The results from this poll is exactly what we mean by art is upstream of culture and politics. We’re happy to welcome a readership with diverse political views, and we celebrate this opportunity to cross political barriers with art that unites. Through our UPSTREAM series, we’ll continue to investigate what Canada’s competing political forces have in store for arts and culture, with a focus on the policies behind the politics.
For this poll, the NDP leads comfortably at 37%, which tracks as the party has historically been the most explicit about arts funding (either directly or indirectly through its economic populism) and the growing popularity of their provincial leader. The Liberals at 27% just might reflect residual goodwill from the Canada Council funding increases under Trudeau, despite a mixed record in recent years. The Conservative result at 20% is higher than many in the arts community would expect, suggesting economic and cultural priorities don’t always overlap (or perhaps a growing frustration with the left’s actual delivery on its promises from this sector.) Though the Greens at 10% outperform the Bloc at 7%, we send a heartfelt shoutout to our few Francophone readers ─ merci de lire Cannopy!
CANNOPY x Élisabeth Pion
The TSM Festival Orchestra closes its Koerner Hall season with two soloists stepping into a rarely-shared spotlight: pianist Élisabeth Pion and harpist Emmanuel Ceysson, the latter taking on Henriette Renié’s Harp Concerto. Honegger’s pastoral miniature opens the evening gently before Mendelssohn’s stormy G minor Concerto (Pion’s Toronto debut!) and Mozart’s brilliant “Haffner” Symphony carries it to a close. Ahead of the concert, CANNOPY spoke with Pion about what it means to arrive at a festival like this for the first time, and what she hears in the Mendelssohn that most soloists miss.
ON THE TORONTO DEBUT
One of the storylines we’ve been tracing in our coverage of TSM over the last three years is this idea that the festival is functioning less and less like a convenient summer fill-in and more like a highlight event on the performance calendar of an increasingly global roster of artists. What does it mean to you to be making your Toronto debut here, and is there something about the summertime pace that makes a debut like this more special?
ÉP — I’m really, really excited to make my debut this summer at Toronto Summer Music. I feel truly thrilled to be alongside colleagues I’ve admired for so many years—people like Les Arts Florissants or Pekka Kuusisto, who is so wildly creative. I feel lucky to inscribe myself in that kind of lineage of artistry, and I’m glad that Toronto Summer Music felt my profile would fit what they are looking for in terms of music-making, because I love their approach to music. It will also be my first time playing in Koerner Hall, and I’ve heard such wonderful things about the acoustics.
As for the summer pace—in a way, summer is also quite hectic in terms of concert schedule. But what is definitely helpful is the sunshine and the heat, and just the fact that after days of rehearsal you can go sit on a terrace or walk in a park. That summer voluptuousness helps for music-making, I find. And what I think will make this particularly memorable is the festival atmosphere itself. When something lingers for more than a few days, there’s a sense of community that builds, people form lasting relationships, and you can feel that intimacy on stage in the connection between musicians. I’m also playing with the Festival Orchestra, which I love—there is a groove and a vitality to playing with younger colleagues that I very much enjoy. And I don’t know Toronto very well yet, so I’m excited to discover the city’s delights.
ON MENDELSSOHN’S PIANO CONCERTO NO. 1
This concerto opens with the soloist’s emphatic entrance on double octaves—a fantasia-like introduction that the orchestra then reverberates. With a reduced chamber orchestra of approximately seventeen musicians accompanying you, how do you anticipate the soloist’s part will be augmented or accentuated? Will you feel on more equal footing, or does the orchestra shift into a more supportive role with a bigger spotlight on the piano?
ÉP — I feel that the reduced chamber orchestra is actually built into the aesthetic of the work—it’s not something that would change my approach to the soloist part. I don’t think it augments or accentuates it so much as it’s a matter of balance and proportion in the architecture. I’ve been working a great deal on period instruments as well, and when you have that awareness of what instruments could do at that time, you realize the blend was considerably more balanced than what it is now with the big Steinways. I think we can very much still create that effect with the instruments at our disposal.
The role of the soloist has, I feel, been rather over-emphasized over the last century and a half. For any concerto I’ve played, I’ve never felt I’m not on equal footing with the orchestra. It’s always a matter of blending—knowing when it’s your time to shine, when it’s the orchestra’s time to shine, and spotting the solos in the orchestra where you can bring the spotlight onto wonderful players. It’s like a painting: if the background is not beautiful and not inviting, what’s in the foreground cannot attract the light. This concerto is very much like that.
Mendelssohn has proven time and again that when he wants something grand and sonorous, he can orchestrate for it—his symphonies show that. But this concerto has much more of a chamber music feeling. The second movement is almost like one of his Songs Without Words. And the third movement, for me, is like a Tom and Jerry game—the piano and orchestra just run after each other trying to catch each other. Their contribution is central to the life of the piece. We take turns being supportive, and we take turns shining. I’m really looking forward to finding that balance with them and playing ping pong.
www.elisabethpion.com
SSM Jazz All-Stars | Aug 1 | STRATFORD ─ A perennial sell-out closes the festival’s jazz programming with an evening of dynamic improvisation from a lineup of acclaimed musicians in an intimate venue. Stratford Summer Music | Jazz
Festival of Friends: 50th Anniversary | Jul 31 – Aug 2 | HAMILTON ─ Canada’s largest free music festival marks its golden anniversary with headliners Feist and Dallas Smith, capped by an all-star 50th anniversary concert. Gage Park | Music
Guelph Fringe Festival | Aug 6–9 | GUELPH ─ A showcase of independent performing artists brings unjuried theatre, comedy, and movement work to venues across downtown Guelph. Guelph Fringe Festival | Theatre
Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey: A Most Horrid Mystery | Aug 6-23 | TORONTO ─ A hilarious, whirlwind adaptation of Austen’s satire follows Catherine Morland as the clichés of Gothic novels spill into her holiday reality, staged outdoors in Guild Park. Guild Festival Theatre | Theatre
Symphony in the Gardens: Classical | Aug 10 | TORONTO ─ The Casa Loma Symphony Orchestra performs an evening of classical repertoire in the castle’s illuminated gardens, led by Paolo Busato. Casa Loma Summer Series | Classical Music
We Move Together or Not at All | Aug 15 | TORONTO ─ Choreographer Sasha Kleinplatz presents a durational choreographic installation activated by different soloists, staged inside a sonified greenhouse. SummerWorks Performance Festival | Dance
Salon des Refusés | Till Aug 15 | LONDON ─ This juried alternative exhibition showcases work rejected from — or made in defiance of — mainstream selection processes, spread across the gallery’s main space and lab. TAP Centre for Creativity | Visual Art
YENSA Festival | Aug 20–23 | TORONTO ─ This biennial festival celebrating women in dance from African and Afro-diasporic cultures returns for its third edition with performance showcases, workshops, and community gatherings under the theme “AS I AM.” Betty Oliphant Theatre | Dance
Lyn Carter: The Pinks | Till Oct 4 | PETERBOROUGH ─ Fibre artist Lyn Carter, named for the rural road where she lives and works, continues her exploration of the stripe as a textile design element evoking horizon lines and furrowed fields. Art Gallery of Peterborough | Textile/Fibre Art
Boring Earth: spontaneous gift | Till Nov 15 | KITCHENER ─ The Earth-based artist collective Boring Earth presents a whimsical outdoor installation exploring more-than-human worldings. Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery | Installation
Issue 16 invites you to take a long, slow walk — through boardwalks, backstreets, and creative nooks — where the coffee is hot, the leaves are turning, and your favourite song plays on loop. Across 100 pages, and spanning twelve editorial series, we encounter over 30 artists who redefine presence: from Toronto’s dance and jazz scenes to London’s Afro-fusion rhythms and Paris’s experimental stages.
KITSCHEN
In our June Issue, we polled our readers for the segment they’d most like to see added to the ANY Newsletter. Restaurant Highlights topped the list with 43% of the vote. You spoke and we’re delivering with KITSCHEN.
There is a school of thought that separates fine dining from fine art, that draws a line between the canvas and the cutting board, the gallery wall and the chalkboard menu. We don’t buy it. Kitsch has spent too long as a term of dismissal—a shorthand for the sentimental, the excessive, the unserious — and we think it’s time to take it back. At its best, kitsch is the art of making people feel immediately, viscerally at home: through colour, through abundance, through the unashamed embrace of the things that bring us joy sans apology.
Introducing KITSCHEN: our living postcard to the restaurants, cafés, and culinary spaces that understand this instinctively—where the menu is a design object, the plating is a composition, and the room itself tells you something true about the people who made it. No stars, no rankings. Just the spaces where someone cared enough to make the whole thing beautiful.
At the link below, discover the KITSCHEN series and vote in our poll for which restaurant we should visit first.
UPSTREAM
If politics is downstream of culture, and art is upstream of culture, then it is important to trace the ways that political decisions and operatives shape the art that we see (and don’t see) in our publicly-funded institutions. UPSTREAM is a video interview series spotlighting how policy intersects with the arts industry through profiles of our political leaders. First up: Mayor Olivia Chow of Toronto.
Enjoy the teaser below, the full episode is coming soon. Become a paid subscriber and get access to all of CANNOPY’s Arts Near You content.
General Manager | August 3 | TORONTO ─ CanAsian Dance is hiring a General Manager to lead financial, operational, and fundraising activities in partnership with its Artistic Lead, centring the company’s mandate to support Asian diasporic dance artists across the GTA. The part-time role runs twenty-seven hours per week. CanAsian Dance | $42,499
VanGo Artist Studio Assistant | August 4 | BARRIE ─ The MacLaren Art Centre is seeking a practicing visual artist to assist with its VanGo outreach program, delivering in-person and virtual studio programming to elementary students across Simcoe County. The casual contract runs through the 2026/27 academic year. MacLaren Art Centre | $20/hour
Executive Director | August 7, 2026 | ANCASTER ─ Theatre Ancaster is seeking an Executive Director to guide the grassroots community theatre through an organizational transition, sharing leadership with a Director of Operations across finance, fundraising, and staffing. The role reports to the Board of Directors. Theatre Ancaster | $80,000
Artistic Director | Open until filled | BRAMPTON ─ PCS Singers is seeking an Artistic Director to conduct weekly rehearsals and lead the fifty-year-old, non-auditioned community choir through its two annual concerts. The role includes programming repertoire and collaborating with the board on concert budgets. PCS Singers (Peel Choral Society) | $60–$100/hour
Boots & Shoes Craftsperson | August 30, 2026 | STRATFORD ─ The Stratford Festival is hiring a Boots & Shoes Craftsperson to join its costume department, working under a Senior Craftsperson on footwear construction, dyeing, and repair for its repertory season. The seasonal, unionized position begins in February 2027. Stratford Festival | $27.80–$35.63/hour
