Editor's Opener

Music's Healing Ways

Up until 1751, the thing we now call New Year’s Day (in the Britannic tradition, which still ordains when we are entitled to get plastered and when we pay our taxes) wasn’t. Instead, the new year was celebrated right around this time of year. It made sense in lots of ways with spring busting out all over. A more convincing marker of renewal than a few more minutes of daily daylight, usually accompanied by an intensification of winter cold.

And speaking of “busting out all over,” this is also the toughest time of year to set editorial priorities. There’s a significant uptick in the number of regular-season performances. There’s a steady buildup of information about upcoming summer musical activity (educational and festival-wise). And the same presenters and venues that are flooding us with press releases and newsletters about March/April events are also clamouring for coverage of their newly announced 2026/27 seasons.

So instead, I am just going to mention a couple of things that particularly caught my eye, while wading knee-deep through the springtime data floodwaters. I chose them because they both, one way or another, speak to a very hopeful trend: for artists, presenters and venues to see what they do not just as a showcase for excellence, but as conduits to music as a vital, participatory community art.
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The first is an announcement from the Music Gallery’s latest newsletter (which is, by the way, chock-a-block with other participatory opportunities). With support from the Ontario Trillium Fund, they are embarking on a one-year project “to purchase special adaptive equipment, conduct training and consultations, and deliver programming in partnership with Deaf and Hard of Hearing artists, in partnership with VibraFusionLab, and Phoenix the Fire, among others.

Phoenix the Fire, a Deaf-led company, “will help design and facilitate a workshop process for Deaf artists, to “integrate and test haptic devices including vibrotactile belts, pillows, and floors” into the process, allowing the Deaf artist to experience sonic information converted into vibrations. “The ability to collaborate in real time, to develop works, and also play in an improvisatory manner is central to our process,” the announcement says.
First up will be an open call “inviting Deaf artists in any creative discipline to participate in a special residency program in September 2026. Five participants will be selected and paired into a collaboration with a music/sound artist to experiment with haptic technologies and workshop their creative ideas through a multi-day residency.”
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For my second example, also arising from a newsletter that caught my eye, you’ll have to make your way, eventually, to the back story in this issue (if you are reading this in print or at kiosk.thewholenote.com). If you have to search for it digitally, it’s titled Watching the excitement unfold: A conversation with Carol Olympus.

A happy old-style new year to you all.

David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

Stumbling across music as a community art

Most of our memorable live musical moments are things we plan for, but they are not necessarily the most memorable. Because there are other kinds of musical moments that tend to stand out even more – the ones where we stumble across some music unexpectedly and find ourselves enchanted – sharing the moment with complete strangers similarly bewitched. (Provided that, in such situations, we are prepared to take a chance on sticking around, because you never know, these days, when an accidental encounter with strangers might become too personal.)

Critical Mass

I was all set to call this last Opener of 2025 “Flagships and Tugboats” and that’s definitely part of what’s on my mind. But only part.

THIS ISN’T A “SAY UNCLE” MOMENT … but it ain’t business as usual either

“Say uncle” definitely isn’t what we called it in my sporadically brutal schooldays. Back there it was “GIVE UP?!” in increasingly threatening tones, as the arm of the victim was twisted past the point of endurance, or their airways choked. But “ow, ow, ow okay okay” was all one had to say to tap out or surrender – not something as ceremonial as “uncle”.

I suspect that say uncle must have entered my verbal repertoire via the Teddy Lester books, or some other such British boy fiction, in which public schoolboy heroes of small stature stoically or heroically prevailed over larger, meaner adversaries, on the cricket field and off. Or maybe it was from the Cagney/Bogart strand of Saturday matinee, local movie-house life – the American version of the same thing.

I realize that what happens to The WholeNote is small (Canadian) potatoes given the extent to which “business as usual” (economically, ethically and emotionally) is at risk right now on a global scale. But those of you who do care are the ones most likely to be reading this. So I have a couple of requests.

First, please check out our proposed 2025/2026 publication schedule (page 6). It’s six issues like last season, but we think in a pattern that matches better the actual rhythms of the arts calendar year. We’ll be giving ourselves till mid-September to publish the first one (September and October), then stick to strictly bimonthly publication after that.

My second request arises from a phonecall from a reader just a couple of days ago, wanting to know where to find a print copy of the summer issue. From the tone of the call and the timbre of the voice I made an automatic assumption – that this was a reader who shuns all digital media for whatever reason, and would be at loss without timely comprehensive print. I took a phone number so I could call back with the information they needed, and then tentatively asked if they had an email address as well. There was a tiny pause, then the withering reply: “Of course I do. This is the 21st century, you know.”

So if that sounds like you, I stand corrected, and here’s what we would like you to consider. We publish a regular weekly listings update which goes out by email every Thursday, looking ten days ahead each time. Unlike the decades when we published monthly, a bimonthly cycle is just too long to keep up with the new listings that flow in on a constant basis, along with changes and corrections. You can sign up to receive the weekly update at thewholenote.com/newsletter so please give it a try.

We are not “crying uncle” when it comes to giving up on print. But print can’t become the tail that wags the dog; we are going to have to use it more wisely and economically than we have in the past – including having to cut back in print on the level of detail we have always prided ourselves on automatically including in our print event listings.

Each of our digital properties comes with things that print can’t replicate: (like this exact magazine in digital form with all kinds of links to follow; or Just Ask on our website which enables you to pinpoint the kinds of music you are interested in.

Please give it a try.

David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com.

Out-takes, Marathons & Streetview Brigades

“In 1888, the French dramatist Alfred Jarry wrote the play Ubu Roi as a satirical and grotesque expression of the way in which arbitrary power engenders madness. He achieved this through the portrayal of a ridiculous but devastating despot, who was also a licentious libertine, an emblem of the clumsy and brutal deeds done in the service of a calculating state. Jarry counters this arbitrary power with what he called ‘pataphysics’ – the science of imaginary solutions, unmasking [the state’s] absurdity through farce, rather than empowering the tyrant by granting him serious presentation.” — Carolyn Cristov–Bakargiev