2020 Festival Program

Markham Contemporary Music Festival (MCMF) is an annual event that takes place in various concert venues in Markham, Ontario. The Festival promotes the performance by local artists of music written worldwide in the 20th and the 21st centuries by Canadian, Indigenous, American, Asian, and European composers and includes lectures and seminars in both English and French, workshops, master-classes, pre-concert chats, intermission discussions, post-concert receptions, documentary films about the life of contemporary composers, and networking events.

The MCMF invites local artists to participate in community engagement activities that celebrate and preserve culture, heritage, and the performing arts. In addition to individual artists, the MCMF may also invite local community groups (civic orchestras, amateur choirs and concert bands, theatrical and dramatic performing arts organizations and chamber music ensembles).

Until 2020, the MCMF attracted annually over 3,000 patrons of the arts. In 2020, the Festival acquired a state-of-the-art equipment with 8 HD cameras and professional quality audio that allowed all activities and events to migrate on-line and be delivered remotely via broadcasting and live-streaming. As a result, the Festival has developed a broad virtual audience from across Canada, and from as far as Japan, China and Hong Kong, the Middle East, and the USA.

The MCMF is an Ontario non-for-profit corporation and a public charitable organization registered with the Government of Canada (charitable registration No. 79773 3284 RR0001). The MCMF is not affiliated with any other charities and conducts its programs and activities governed by a volunteer-based independent Board of Directors.