Music on Main

welcome to music on main

Music on Main's 2011/2012 Season features great music, casual and fun environments and leading musicians like Gabriel Kahane, Eve Egoyan, Dale Barltrop and Ensemble Made in Canada.

Check out our concerts for the complete line-up.

Launched to critical acclaim in 2006, Vancouver's Music on Main is dedicated to great music in casual but stimulating environments, with top-flight musicians, an ear for contemporary music, and refreshing concert formats.

Now in its sixth season, Music on Main has produced 120 concerts featuring in excess of 300 musicians and more than 40 world premieres at Heritage Hall on Main Street and at the Cellar Restaurant and Jazz Club in Kitsilano.

From Baroque to Post-Folk, from Brahms sonatas to electronic improv, from hardcore Modernism to hard-driving Minimalism, Music on Main is interested in great music, whatever we might call it.

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Help make the music happen. Click on support us for more information about Monthly Giving and other ways you can contribute to what Vancouver Magazine calls "one of the city's most valuable alt-high-culture providers."

upcoming events

Christopher Bagan | An Apprenticeship with Bach | Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Hear rarely performed music by some of J.S. Bach's greatest students, including Johann Krebs. You'll also discover rising star keyboardist Christopher Bagan, a featured artist in Music on Main's 2011/2012 Season.

Ariel Barnes, cello: Benjamin Britten’s three Cello Suites | Tuesday, March 6, 2012
A Month of Tuesdays

The Vancouver Sun writes that cellist Ariel Barnes’ “luscious tone and technical prowess marks him as a musician of real stature.” With his ability to reach deep into his listeners’ souls, he’s a perfect match for Benjamin Britten’s Cello Suites. At once darkly passionate and emotionally restrained, Britten’s three suites for solo cello are cornerstones of 20th-Century music. One of this season’s “must-hear” events.

Ensemble Made in Canada, piano quartet | Tuesday, March 13, 2012
A Month of Tuesdays

Winners of the CBC Galaxie Rising Stars Award, and featured in Chatelaine Magazine’s list of “80 amazing Canadian women to watch,” Ensemble Made in Canada has firmly established itself as Canada’s premier piano quartet. As part of their first tour in British Columbia, they stop at the Cellar for an evening of superlative chamber music: Mahler's rarely heard Piano Quartet, a world premiere from John Burge, and Schumann's thrilling Piano Quartet.