Illustration by Sarah Farquhar
For those who cannot wait for Taylor Swift to make to her way to Toronto’s Rogers Centre late next year, the concert film Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour hits more than 150 Cineplex theatres across the Canada on Oct. 13. For those who prefer their live music on stage, not on screen, the fall concert calendar is full and fabulous.
The trailblazers
Canadian musician and tenor Jeremy Dutcher performs during the Juno Music Awards on March 17, 2019.LARS HAGBERG/AFP/Getty Images
Dispensing with the sci-fi futurism of her past work, the dynamo Janelle Monáe now seems bent on ushering in a sexy new era for today. Her new album is The Age of Pleasure, a confident expression of Afrobeat, reggae and free love under the disco lights. The party comes to Montreal’s MTelus (Sept. 20) and Toronto’s Massey Hall (Sept. 21-22).
The classically trained New Brunswick native Jeremy Dutcher describes his forthcoming album as a transcendental protest record and a healing, queer experience. Motewolonuwok is a lustrous work of high drama, sung in English and Wolastoqey, the Polaris Prize-winner’s native tongue. A 10-province tour begins at Tidemark Theatre in Campbell River, B.C. (Oct. 19).
Anniversaries, happy and sad
It has been 25 years since Lauryn Hill schooled the world with her landmark hip hop album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. In celebration, she reunites with her former band the Fugees at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena (Oct. 26).
Canada lost songwriting giant Robbie Robertson of the Band a month ago. He personally endorsed the tribute band Chest Fever, which recreates the Band’s farewell concert The Last Waltz at Toronto’s Massey Hall on Nov. 18, in recognition of the performance’s 47th anniversary.
A new spin on classic rock
Inuk musician Elisapie has just released Inuktitut, a radiant, minimalist album of well-known songs from Led Zeppelin, Blondie, Metallica, Cyndi Lauper and the Rolling Stones sung in Inuktitut. A run of multimedia concerts dedicated to the new record take place in Montreal and Quebec City in December.
The legends
Bruce Springsteen, left, and Steven Van Zandt perform on tour at MetLife Stadium on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023, in East Rutherford, N.J. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP)Scott Roth/The Associated Press
The 82-year-old Nobel laureate Bob Dylan brings his Rough and Rowdy Ways tour to Toronto’s Massey Hall (Oct. 26-27) and Montreal’s Place des Arts (Oct. 29). Expect an elite band interpreting an iconic songbook, led by an anti-social troubadour who mumble-sings but is otherwise mute.
Bonnie Raitt tours this fall in support of the album Just Like That, the title track of which earned the funky singer-guitarist a surprise Grammy Award for the year’s top song. Dates include a performance at Winnipeg’s landmark Burton Cummings Theatre on Sept. 30.
Though the night and the road for Bruce Springsteen has always seemed endless, this might be the final excursion for the Boss with his loyal, battle-hardened E Street Band. They play eight arenas starting in Vancouver on Nov. 3.
Country music, big and small
If Springsteen was born to run, the boondocks balladeer Morgan Wallen sings a different origin story: Born With a Beer in My Hand opens the latest album from the country superstar, who checked himself into rehab following his alcohol-fuelled racial slur scandal of 2021. The Tennessean’s nine-city Canadian tour this month and next includes dates at Toronto’s Budweiser Stage and Budweiser Gardens in London, Ont.
The drinks and ticket prices will be cheap in comparison when Alberta’s Richard Inman and Saskatchewan’s Zachary Lucky swap songs and shoot the breeze at venues such as the Velvet Olive in Red Deer, Alta., the Epsilon Cabaret in Winnipeg and the Orillia Opera House in Orillia, Ont.
One-offs
Rhiannon Giddens performs at 'A New York Evening With Rhiannon Giddens' at National Sawdust on August 17, 2023 in New York City.Rob Kim/Getty Images
The Pulitzer-winning folk-music polymath Rhiannon Giddens plays Toronto’s Koerner Hall, Sept. 20; Mi’kmaq fiddler and singer Morgan Toney rosins his bow at Nova Scotia’s Lunenburg Opera House, Sept. 30; Nashville-based folk-pop wunderkind Joy Oladokun graces Toronto’s Phoenix Theatre, Sept. 28.
Album launches
Vancouver’s Haley Blais has tenderly plucked the ukulele on YouTube and she has sung opera too. These days, she dedicates herself to the kind of jangled, sure-footed indie pop found on her sophomore album, Wisecrack, to be launched at the hometown Hollywood Theatre on Oct. 20.
For his new album of art songs, the composer James Rolfe adapted the words of poets including Governor General Award-winner George Elliott Clarke. The resulting Wound Turned to Light sees the light of day at Toronto’s Heliconian Hall, Oct. 13.
Liquid melodies, available emotions and low-key sparkle mark I’d Be Lying If I Said I Didn’t Care, the latest LP from the Ontario pop songstress Hannah Georgas. Her upcoming tour hits venues including Saskatoon’s Capitol Music Club, Edmonton’s Starlite Room and the Dream Café in Penticton, B.C.
An Indigenous collaboration
Sultans Of String sultansofstring-quartet-desert3-highres.jpgSupplied
The all-instrumental Sultans of String collaborated with First Nations, Métis and Inuit artists for the new album Walking Through the Fire. A multimedia show travels throughout Ontario – including stops in Kenora, Fort Frances and Sioux Lookout – and sometimes incorporates local symphonies along the way. (Starts Sept. 28.)
Opera highlights
Canoe, an Indigenous opera about two sisters and their mysterious past, had its world premiere at Toronto’s Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre this week (to Sept. 16). The two-act opera comes from Spy Dénommé-Welch and Catherine Magowan of Unsettled Scores, a company devoted to works that explore difficult Canadian histories. Opera on the Avalon’s February, based on a Lisa Moore’s acclaimed novel about a seafaring tragedy off the coast of Newfoundland in 1982, debuts next month in St. John’s.
One does not need to be a maestro to know Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. It is a lesser known fact that he produced just one opera. On Sept. 29, the Canadian Opera Company launches its season with the great composer’s Fidelio. In November, Toronto’s Tapestry Opera presents a new production of Rocking Horse Winner, a modern adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence short story. Opera de Montreal opens its season next weekend with a classic, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.
Drake drama
Drake performs during Lil Baby's Birthday Party at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Saturday, Dec. 9, 2022.Paul R. Giunta/The Associated Press
His summer single is titled Search & Rescue, but Drake is not on the mission himself – the rap king with a flair for performative vulnerability seeks to be the rescuee not the rescuer. After postponing a Vancouver concert last month at the last minute due to “unforeseen circumstances,” Drake brings the drama to Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, Oct. 6-7.