Our Recommendations
Indulge your appetite for arts and culture.
With so many exciting arts and culture events happening you can feel overwhelmed. The Music on Main Team is here to help! We’ve carefully chosen a list of wonderful digital and live events to discover and experience. Whether you’re looking for a theatrical diversion or a blockbuster art show, some new dance or a classical concerto, our recommendations is a list of must-see events whenever you’re looking for a hit of culture. Make sure to check back often, as we are always scouting fun events that we think you’ll love!
Our Recommendations are must-see events, some from our Vancouver home base and a few from across the globe that we think you’ll enjoy. We’re your trusted source that you’ll want to come back to every time you’re looking for something new and exciting to discover. If you’re looking for only Music on Main events check here.
birdcage
Produced by Alex Mah
Presented by Pi Theatre & EDAM
At EDAM (303 E 8th Ave), September 3-5
Encounters with ghosts. Diasporic memories. Dreams. Grandmothers.
birdcage is an introspective multi-media performance work that reflects on family, migration, and memory through written text (scores and poetry), lanterns, voice, soundscapes, and improvisation. These elements weave together images in a devised form of cross-disciplinary storytelling. The original work is composed and performed by Alex Mah and collaborator-violinist Ilana Waniuk, with an artistic team made up of first- or second-generation Canadians. birdcage explores the hope, longing, and confusion of Mah’s mixed-race, immigrant identity in search of itself by lantern light.
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VNM Festival 2026 Open Frequencies
The annual VNM Festival returns with Open Frequencies, a three-day program spotlighting bold, globally engaged approaches to new music by artists working at the forefront of experimental, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural sound practices. Featuring renowned percussionist Kuniko Kato with Haruka Aoyagi, Karin Tozaki, Koichi Hosono, and Misaki Matsuno (Japan) in a virtuosic performance dedicated to the music of Steve Reich, cellist and composer Okkyung Lee (Korea), vocalist and sound artist Nadah El Shazly (Egypt/Montreal) with harpist Sarah Pagé (Montreal), and BC artists Meredith Bates (Salt Spring Island) and Piu (Nanaimo).
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Epigone
Epigone is a contemporary tragedy about our responsibility to the dead—and to one another. Part requiem for the under-acknowledged casualties of the opioid crisis and toxic drug supply, the work asks how grief, care, justice, and memory ripple through a family and the wider community that surrounds it. Inspired by classical texts including Antigone, Electra, Seven Against Thebes, and The Bacchae, Epigone draws these ancient questions—duty versus law, mercy versus vengeance, the solitary voice versus the collective—into a present-day landscape shaped by loss and survival.
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EAST VAN PANTO: HERCULES
Deep under the streets of Vancouver, Hades — God of the No-Fun-Derworld — is digging his way to power with his newest megaproject: the Arbutus Subway System — also known as the A.S.S. Expansion! Wanting to be adored by humankind and determined to squash protests from woke East Van, Hades will stop at nothing to claim the city as his own.
Standing in his way is his nephew and reluctant hero, Hercules. Raised by Hera — Goddess of East Van, local activist and undisputed ruler of Science World — Hercules could save the day…if he weren’t too busy tackling his Labours while chiselling away at his own statuesque physique! When Hades schemes to seize Science World and turn it into a gleaming shrine to outdated masculinity, Herc is put to the ultimate test. Can he overcome his personal trials before Hades flexes his way to total domination?
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