Editorial

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Despite budget cuts and threats of protests, this will be a very busy musical summer in Canada. Whether you live in Newfoundland, Saint-Eustache or Victoria, there is a festival nearby.

In La Scena Musicale’s 16th annual Summer Festival issue, we offer you the most complete Guide to Canadian Classical Music and Jazz Festivals, with listings of 110 classical music festivals, 600 concerts and 92 jazz festivals to help you plan your musical summer. Moreover, our writers also highlight the most exciting events on the Canadian music festival scene. Some festivals hadn’t sent us their concert listings by press time, so visit festivals.scena.org for the most up-to-date calendar, as well as our guide to arts festivals.

All season long, La Scena Musicale has been brought to you in separate English and French editions, so what better way to celebrate the festival season than with two different covers in recognition of our annual jazz focus issue? The English edition features jazz bassist Renaud Garcia-Fons, while the French edition features Canadian classical violinist Andrew Wan.

The June-July 2011 Discovery CD (in partnership with Espace 21) features Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, performed by pianists Myriam Farid and Olivier Godin. Starting in October, the Discovery CD will go digital with bi-weekly downloads of Canadian and International artists—that’s 26 full-length recordings per year. An even better reason to subscribe.

Another great reason to subscribe is our upcoming bi-weekly industry e-news column written by PR specialist Shira Gilbert, who begins her Industry News column in this issue. This column is dedicated to connecting the arts community by highlighting new developments in music and arts organizations across Canada. If you have new initiatives, programs and commissions, tour announcements and updates, new appointments in artistic or administrative positions, competition and award winners and opportunities and additions to artist rosters, please email us at shira[at]lascena[dot]org.

La Scena Musicale depends on your support in order to continue promoting classical music in Canada and we are grateful for your readership and encouragement. We welcome volunteers in writing, translation, distribution, marketing and fundraising, as well as donations. See dons.lascena.org.

Have a festive musical summer, and we look forward to reconnecting with you in our Fall Preview/Back to School August-September issue, out on August 10.