Summer is winding down... get inspired by the local music community!

As the end of summer comes into view, we still have two AMAZING local music festivals to look forward to:

Endless Summer Festival in Kitchener’s Victoria Park on September 7 featuring TALK and Rêve
Fest2Fall in Cambridge’s Gaslight District on September 19-20 featuring Bahamas and the Beaches

I am thrilled to report that local talent will be featured at both these fests – I, the Mountain, Sydney Jones, Softcult, Avalon Stone and JJ Wilde - incredible representation!!

In addition to these fests, the public activations Amit Mehta and GoodCo are doing with the DTK BIA (e.g., the Sunset Sessions and Palette x Palate) make it very apparent that our music scene is on the upswing!

An amazing new venue is now available to rent for gigs – Fellowship Hall at St. Matthews (corner of Benton and Charles in DTK). This space rocks, and they now have a system for allowing alcohol onsite. Check it out here!

Mike Morrice, MP for Kitchener Centre, has been highlighting the inequitable distribution of funding for the arts in our region. For example, in 2022-2023, our region received $3.39 per capita in arts funding compared to cities like Montreal, Winnipeg and Vancouver, who received an average of $18.30 per capita! What can we do as musicians? Apply, apply apply to the comprehensive list of grants here!!

OK, so you get your music up on the big streaming platforms but nothing is happening for you because those pesky algorithms are not cooperating. So frustrating. Here’s a solution – platforms where the algorithms don’t come between you and your fans – check it out!

Ian Graham

Ian Graham is an institution on the local music scene. For 30 years he has recorded and produced hundreds of local bands and records in his Small Dog Studio. He has also been teaching audio for the past decade at Conestoga College and Wilfrid Laurier.

He’s the ultimate Rush fan and recently got invited to Scotland to perform in the Rush Allstar Band! Ian has some amazing news to share about Small Dog Studio, so reach out and connect.

A moving musical experience:

All the years of Rush concerts... sound, lights, visuals, pyros, lasers... incredible musicians. But their last concert tour had us all feeling quite the emotional roller coaster.

Favourite thing about Kitchener:

Cultural food options! Pho, Dim Sum, Shawarma, etc

Local music happenings that inspire you:

Helping to develop new local artists. Lots of great talent here!

Currently listening to:

Amarok, A Short Walk To Pluto

I had an inspiring conversation recently with Peter Szczeszynski, co-founder of MicroMusic. What he and his colleagues at UW have developed is both incredibly fascinating and incredibly useful. MicroMusic is designed to level the playing field between professional and amateur producers regarding creating synthesizer sounds. This is done by using AI to transform any audio file into a synthesizer preset!

Peter sees MicroMusic as a creative tool for songwriters, engineers and producers that saves them the time of actually configuring a synth for specific sounds. I find it very inspiring that he and his colleagues have solved the labor-intensive problem of synth configuration in a way that non-synth musicians can benefit. Take your songs to the next level – check it out here!

What do you think? As always, comments or feedback are welcome at KitchenerMusicOffice@kitchener.ca

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