The WholeNote VOLUME 32
The WholeNote VOLUME 32 NO 1 SEPTEMBER 2026 IN THIS EDITION STORIES AND INTERVIEWS MJ Buell, Lucas Hung, Jennifer Parr, David Perlman, Luca Perlman, Adam Sherkin CD Columnists and Reviewers David Olds Proofreading David Olds, Ted Parkinson, John Sharpe Listings Team John Sharpe, Kevin Harris, Gary Heard, Kevin King, Sophia Perlman Design Team Kevin King, Susan Sinclair Directories Team Karen Ages, Danial Jazaeri Circulation Team John Bentley, Jack Buell, Jane Dalziel, Bruno Difilippo, Vito Gallucci, James Harris, Miguel Brito-Lopez, Lorna Nevison, Janet O’Brien DEADLINES Weekly Online Listings Updates 6pm every Thursday for the following Thursday Print listings deadline: for Volume 32 No. 2, October & November 2026 6pm Tuesday, September 8, 2026 Print advertising, reservation deadline: 6pm Tuesday, September 8, 2026 Web advertising can be booked at any time PUBLICATION DATES OUR 312st SEASON includes six editions: Vol 32 no 1 | September 2026 Vol 32 no 2 | October & November 2026 Vol 32 no 3 | December 2026 & January 2027 Vol 32 no 4 | February & March 2027 Vol 32 no 5 | April & May 2027 Vol 32 no 6 | June, July & August 2027 Printed in Canada Couto Printing & Publishing Services an Ontario government agency un organisme du gouvernement de l’Ontario FOR OPENERS The skinny on Volume 32 number 1 … When we say skinny we mean really skinny: this is our first 32-pager since Vol 4 no 10, in the summer of 1999. Classical saxophonist Daniel Rubinoff was on our cover and the accompanying story lamented the lack of respect his instrument gets in orchestral circles. In the issue, publisher Allan Pulker addressed his opening remarks to the fact that the previous summer faithful readers had “roundly chastised us for jumbling all the summer festival listings in with our regular concert listings.” “Readers staying in the city resented wading through lists of interesting concerts only to find that something striking their fancy was taking place in Elora or Ottawa or Parry Sound,” he wrote. “And conversely, people joining the annual exodus to one or another place didn’t want to wade through everything either.” And he concluded by hoping that “whether city-bound or cottage bound, this new arrangement (for the summer only!) will better meet your needs.” The “new arrangement” didn’t interfere with Toronto’s place at the centre of the cultural universe, with a kind of horseshoe-shaped “rest of the galaxy” around it, What was new was a whole clutch of summer listings arranged not by date but alphabetically by festival. It only sort of worked, of course, because no completely satisfactory print-only solution exists. Just ask John Sharpe, our listings editor. We go through this every year. The difference between now and 1999 is we are safely on the other side of Y2K and digital assistance is at hand if we so choose. Check out “Tired of Scrolling?” on page 24. This is, by the way, our 307th issue since Sept 1995 when Pulse Vol 1 no1 hit the streets. (See “Off to a flying start”, pages 22-23.) All but one of the 307 made it into print. The one that didn’t? February 2022. Gorgeous, whimsical, hopeful cover. There we were, all dressed up, and the pandemic door slammed shut again, leaving us with nowhere to go. That was a tough moment. 307 is a prime number, by the way and this is, as best as I can remember, only the second time the phrase “prime number” has made it into one of my openers. Last time round, the topic was “twin primes” and the “twins” in question were 139 and 141. A charming little editorial if I say so myself. And useful. It pointed to ways house concerts, lovingly curated, can be integral to the larger story we need to tell: the range and variety of spaces needed for a community’s musical life to thrive. There are two contrasting stories on that theme in this issue - all the way from megahall to “nanostage”. Pages 10-13. Back to the “why so skinny this month” question Simplest answer: No DISCoveries section this month. That’s a chunk of real estate. DISCoveries only arrived in our pages with Volume 6 no 10, summer of 2001 so Vol 4 no 10 didn’t have a DISCoveries section either. But it did have CD reviews. Thirteen of them in fact. Back then David Parsons wrote a regular new music column for us titled “Hear and Now” - what we call “In with the New” these days. With new music presenters mostly missing from the summer action Parsons pulled together a page of short reviews of recordings - a mix of old and newly released - that would enable listeners hungry for atonality to curate their own concerts. A lovely, unstuffily erudite piece of writing. Maybe it’s an idea worth revisiting now that we have a Listening Room, regularly restocked, to program from? And speaking of re-stocking, DISCoveries will be back in its usual spot in October. David Perlman can be reached at publisher@thewholenote.com T'KARONTO For thousands of years before European settlement, T’karonto (The Meeting Place) was part of the traditional territory of many Nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit River, the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, and remains their home to this day, as it now is for many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Metis peoples. This Meeting Place lies within the territory governed by the Sewatokwa’tshera’t (Dish with One Spoon) treaty between the Anishinaabe, Mississaugas and Haudenosaunee - a Treaty which bound them to share the territory and protect the land. Subsequent Indigenous Nations and Peoples, and all newcomers are invited into this treaty in the spirit of peace, friendship, respect and reconciliation. We are grateful to live and work here, helping spread the word about the healing power of music in this place. 6 | September 2026 thewholenote.com
COVER STORY Behind the scenes at KMJF MOLLY JOHNSON, humanitarian DAVID PERLMAN COMING UP IN DISCoveries Molly Johnson’s latest record, Talk to Me, was released mid-June at the El Mocambo on Spadina Avenue - a landmark Kensington music venue, if ever there was one. And the 11th annual Kensington Market Jazz Festival - a quintessentially Molly Johnson labour of love - is just around the corner (September 18 to 20). So what better time for a cover photo of Molly Johnson, jazz diva, in the spotlight at her own festival as it enters its second decade? Finding a photograph like that seemed like a no-brainer. Except for one problem. There aren’t any - and that’s not likely to change any time soon. How do I know? Because I asked, and when Molly says “it ain’t going to happen” you might as well just move on. Simply put, that’s not what KMJF is about, for her. “I don’t really like the spotlight, as it turns out; I don’t really like being famous” is how she explained it in a 2023 interview by Denise Donlon, television producer, author, public speaker, host and, like Molly Johnson, a member of the Order of Canada. “As it turns out, I ‘d much prefer not to be famous. But it’s part of my job. So over the years I have figured out a way to take that fame and bright light and shine it on other things, and use it to do things with. So it allows me to be more comfortable with fame because it’s a tool in my toolbelt - to help me do the things I really love doing.” Which is what? “Putting people in a room and getting them to make things, and to stand there and watch them making things. I love that.” CHRIS NICHOLLS The GGs: The six-minute Donlon “legacy interview” as it was called took place on May 24 2023, the day after Molly Johnson received the Governor General’s Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award in a ceremony at Rideau Hall. It is part of a cluster of material on the Governor General’s website. The cluster also includes Johnson’s brief acceptance speech (quintessential Molly, again); and an NFB “Molly Movie”, also six minutes long, directed by none other than actor/director Clark Johnson, Molly’s older brother and early confederate in child acting fame. Both the interview and the film are well worth watching, for anyone wanting to know more about how how the various tools in her toolbelt came to be there: from the “best advice she ever received” (from Ed Mirvish, at age 5); to the tumultuous Queen West years that followed when “all I wanted was to be a rock star”; to the years when “I was the cleaning lady at the Cameron House till one of the owners said if I sang songs from the Great American Songbook, it would cover my rent. So I went from being the cleaning lady to the singer in the back room.” Kumbaya: The years 1992-1995, with AIDS still rampant, were pivotal. As the GG Award Citation - also worth a read - describes this time: “Through her work as co-founder and producer of the Kumbaya Foundation in 1992, she has raised awareness of and funds for people living with HIV/AIDS. The associated Kumbaya Festival (1993-95) raised over million and holds the record as Canada’s largest music fundraiser.” And how Molly describes it? “I was sick to death of showing up at benefits for AIDS that were a drop in the bucket. With Kumbaya that was me being tired of doing benefits and being the only one not getting paid - the lighting guy, sound, the caterer, everybody else was. And then there were the artists: paying for our own cabs and drycleaning bills.” continues to page 31 A SAMPLER of what our writers are listening to! Stay tuned for October (and see page 30) Meanwhile, visit thewholenote.com/listening thewholenote.com September 2026 | 7
