Soundstream's 2018-19 season looks forwards and backwards in provocative ways. Lawrence Cherney walks us through Soundstreams latest season as Toronto's contemporary music keystone.

Be they Arthur Erickson's Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, or The Copenhagen Concert Hall in Denmark, concerts halls are dream spaces whose designs tell us just as much about ourselves as we tell about them.

Let’s presume this ‘indie-classical’ moniker isn’t going away. We have a cast of certain regular suspects: Nico Muhly, Bryce Dessner, Richard Reed Parry, Max Richter, Hauschka, and Jonny Greenwood. I enjoy these folks’ work as much as anyone, but unfortunately they represent, in aggregate, a systemic issue that listeners ought to leave behind in the classical world. This isn’t anyone’s fault in particular. Dismantling a patriarchal system that took hundreds of years to build is simply going to take some time. It’s why we hear about “women composers” in the papers, but never hear about “men composers.” It’s why there is a lopsided gender ratio among members at the Canadian Music Centre. It’s why we don’t ask men how their gender and maleness informs their music. And this all needs to be reconsidered.

"My personal ambitions never went beyond maintaining my work at the highest level. That was always my goal." MT catches up with TSO Principal Flute Nora Shulman to chat about her upcoming retirement and the road ahead.

In one month, Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra will bring its unique brand of Eastern and Western musics to Toronto. Here's what we can expect.

You’ll want to dance when you hear these tunes! Suzie LeBlanc says of her new CD of Christmas music titled, La Veillée de Noël (Christmas Eve) out this past Tuesday, October 14.Fiddle or voice, music is an inseparable part of the Acadian cultural tradition. In the Maritimes, old French songs ring out like heirlooms moving across generations as seamlessly as the Nova Scotia fog belt.

Opera doesn't make money, it never has, and we all know it. I was recently asked about opera's economy and why opera companies have never functioned as a for-profit theatre company. The theoretical comparison was between the Canadian Opera Company and Mirvish Productions. My initial response to the question of a business model was that there was simply not enough money. Opera is expensive to put up, and expensive to maintain; Mirvish Productions was funded with Ed Mirvish's wealth, and designed to make money from its theatres and productions. As with most opera and theatre companies worldwide, the COC receives government grants, and both corporate and individual donations to supplement their revenue from ticket sales. Without that kind of support, the math simply wouldn't add up. We know this in the theatre industry; it's nothing new. So, with all the generous donors keeping opera afloat, why hasn't there been a notable attempt to invest in starting an opera company that will eventually self-sustain?

Seven seasons of Opéra de Montreal have trained me to read a season brochure cynically and only with chemical support. I must find satisfaction in the absence of disaster rather than the chance of a triumph. Objectively, of course, this is awful; I love opera but have to travel for interesting productions. But I am much calmer now.

Three professional classical musicians walk us through how much money it takes to make it in this business.

Although the concept of a Hip-Hop Opera is not new, Tapestry Opera’s Forbidden may have the inspiration to make this one work.