Our Recommendations
Indulge your appetite for arts and culture.
With so many exciting arts and culture events happening you can feel overwhelmed. The Music on Main Team is here to help! We’ve carefully chosen a list of wonderful digital and live events to discover and experience. Whether you’re looking for a theatrical diversion or a blockbuster art show, some new dance or a classical concerto, our recommendations is a list of must-see events whenever you’re looking for a hit of culture. Make sure to check back often, as we are always scouting fun events that we think you’ll love!
Our Recommendations are must-see events, some from our Vancouver home base and a few from across the globe that we think you’ll enjoy. We’re your trusted source that you’ll want to come back to every time you’re looking for something new and exciting to discover. If you’re looking for only Music on Main events check here.
Barbara Hannigan, soprano & Bertrand Chamayou, piano
Grammy Award-winning soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan is an artist at the forefront of creation. Embodying music with an unparalleled dramatic sensibility, she has shown a profound commitment to the music of our time and has given the world premiere performances of over 90 new works. For her VRS debut, she will be partnered by acclaimed pianist Bertrand Chamayou, a regular chamber music performer with partners including Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Quatuor Ébène, and Sol Gabetta.
“The intrepid Canadian soprano has emerged over the last half decade as one of the most vital and original musicians of her generation.” — The New Yorker
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Songs of War I Have Seen – Music on Texts of Gertrude Stein
The complex and controversial Gertrude Stein, born 150 years ago, was one of the most influential writers of her generation on modernist art, and several generations of composers to the present day. The program is a staged concert including the epic Songs of War I Have Seen by arguably one of the most innovative music theatre composers of the last 20 years, Germany’s Heiner Goebbels. Goebbels’ work includes a choice of 26 texts from Stein’s book written during the Second World War in France, all narrated by female members of the ensemble. The concert will also include B.C. composer Peter Hatch’s powerful Reflections on the Atomic Bomb which includes observations of Gertrude Stein published in the ‘Previously uncollected writings of Gertrude Stein’.
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Cedar & Snow Indigenous Art Market
Find beautiful, one-of-a-kind pieces, including beadwork, illustrations, books, medicines and more from local and urban Indigenous artists at the Cedar & Snow Indigenous Art Market at the Museum of Vancouver on Sunday, December 1st.
Whether you’re looking for the perfect holiday gift or simply want to immerse yourself in Indigenous artistry, this market has something for everyone. Explore a vibrant range of handcrafted goods—from traditional art forms to contemporary designs, each reflecting the cultural connections of the artists who made them.
Admission is free and visiting the Museum that day happens to fall on our monthly Pay What You Can day, which occurs on the first Sunday of every month. Don’t miss this chance to connect with local Indigenous artists and celebrate creativity in the winter season!
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Concert at the Belkin: Fall Exhibitions
We are pleased to welcome back the UBC Contemporary Players to the Belkin for a concert inspired by the current exhibitions That Directionless Light of the Future: Rediscovering Russell FitzGerald and An Opulence of Squander. Led by Director Paolo Bortolussi, this graduate and undergraduate student ensemble from the UBC School of Music will animate the gallery for an afternoon program celebrating themes from the exhibitions.
All are welcome and admission is free.
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Circa (Australia)
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, along comes Duck Pond, Circa’s irreverent take on the timeworn classic Swan Lake. Throw out any preconceived notions of balletic preciousness, tutus and frou-frou, and embrace the exquisitely controlled chaos that is Australia’s preeminent dance-circus company.
Under the visionary direction of choreographer Yaron Lifschitz, Circa mixes it up, throwing in burlesque, heart-in-throat acrobatics, romance, and more than a little madness and mayhem to create a fully feathered concoction.
In Duck Pond, elements of Tchaikovsky’s iconic ballet and Hans Christian Andersen’s beloved parable The Ugly Duckling leap headlong into the pool together. Performers leap, tumble, and proffer topsy-turvy takes on the roles of pining prince, black swan, and an army of yellow billed duck-dancers in sequinned flippers. The result is a circus marvel, glittering with theatrical magic and laughter, all cued up by the words “Once upon a time.”
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WONDERFUL JOE
“Paint gold in the part of me that is broken. Let my faultline shine, these golden precious scars are fine, divine, and mine.”
Joe and his dog Mister lose their home, and facing separation, head into the world for one last grand adventure together. The world seems broken, but Joe sees magic in the mundane, beauty amidst brutality, and life in the lost and lonely. He and Mister encounter Mother Nature, Santa Claus, Jesus and the Tooth Fairy, witness a troupe of homeless players in a cardboard theatre, and show a disenfranchised teen how to jump over the moon in a playground rocket ship. A seemingly simple tale of a simple man, Wonderful Joe is a love letter to imagination, hope, and the art of filling broken hearts with gold.
Ronnie Burkett brings this story to life with his signature style of beautiful puppetry and solo performance, with a glorious score and soundscape by John Alcorn.
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