Musique Royale

08/07/2026

From August 12-16, Musique Royale presents Hendoustan, a musical journey exploring the shared heritage of Persian and Indian classical traditions. Featuring Aditya Verma (sarod), Anjana Srinivasan (Carnatic violin), Mohammad Sahraei (tar), and Ziya Tabassian (tombak), the tour visits Lunenburg, Annapolis Royal, Wolfville, Halifax, Arichat, and Baddeck.

For centuries, Persia and the Indian subcontinent were connected through trade, poetry, scholarship, and cultural exchange. Along these same routes travelled musicians, carrying melodic modes, rhythmic ideas, and improvisational practices that evolved into distinct traditions while preserving deep musical connections. Hendoustan brings these parallel lineages together once again, inviting Nova Scotian audiences to experience a rich dialogue between two of the world's great classical musical cultures.

Tour Schedule
Wednesday, August 12, 12:00 pm - St. John's Anglican Church, Lunenburg
Wednesday, August 12, 7:00 pm - St. Luke's Anglican Church, Annapolis Royal
Thursday, August 13, 7:00 pm - Manning Memorial Chapel, Wolfville
Friday, August 14, 7:00 pm - St. David's Presbyterian Church, Halifax
Saturday, August 15, 7:00 pm - St. John's Centre for the Arts, Arichat
Sunday, August 16, 7:30 pm - Midsummer Music Series, Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, Baddeck

Admission: $25 in advance, $30 at the door. Youth admitted free (ages 18 and under).

About the artists:
Sarod player Aditya Verma is one of today's foremost interpreters of the Maihar-Senia tradition of North Indian classical music and a respected scholar of Indo-Persian musical history. She is joined by Anjana Srinivasan, an acclaimed Carnatic violinist whose expressive, voice-like style and rhythmic sophistication embody the South Indian tradition. Together, they collaborate with Persian musicians Mohammad Sahraei, a master of the tar steeped in the poetic radif repertoire, and Ziya Tabassian, an internationally celebrated tombak virtuoso renowned for his expressive artistry and remarkable command of intricate rhythmic cycles.

08/02/2026

A wonderful concert featuring the Trad Ensemble from the Halifax Institute of Traditional and Early Music on Wednesday at St John's Anglican Church in Lunenburg. Thank you for all the beautiful playing! Next week, the Wednesdays at Noon series continues with Duo Concertante whose concerts have been described as "Grace and fire... a triumphant mass of non-stop energy." (The WholeNote), joining us on August 5. Don't miss it!

Wednesdays at Noon is a series of music presentations at St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. Concerts are roughly 45 minutes in length and are held every Wednesday at 12 pm through July and August. Performances feature artists from the local and national scene in an eclectic mix of presentations. These performances will draw residents and tourists to enjoy music within beautiful and historic setting of St John’s, the second-oldest Anglican church in Canada, and first church established in Lunenburg. Admission is $10 at the door, youth free. Programming supports the St John’s Music Program.

musiqueroyale.com

07/28/2026

Part of the Wednesdays at Noon series, Musique Royale welcomes the Trad Ensemble from the Halifax Institute of Traditional and Early Music to perform tomorrow, Wednesday July 29th at 12 pm at St John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. Directed by Anthony Rissesco and Jennifer Publicover, the Trad Ensemble at the Halifax Institute of Traditional and Early Music is an intergenerational group with members from all walks of life exploring a wide range of traditional music genres together. They are joined by Boxwood Festival visiting artists from Sweden, Peter Rousu and Stefan Ekedahl. The Trad Ensemble will play music from Sweden and Ireland, with Maritime and Cape Breton old time tunes too.

Wednesdays at Noon is a series of music presentations at St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. Concerts are roughly 45 minutes in length and are held every Wednesday at 12 pm through July and August. Performances feature artists from the local and national scene in an eclectic mix of presentations. These performances will draw residents and tourists to enjoy music within beautiful and historic setting of St John’s, the second-oldest Anglican church in Canada, and first church established in Lunenburg. Admission is $10 at the door, youth free. Programming supports the St John’s Music Program.

Further dates:
August 5, 12 pm - Duo Concertante
August 12, 12 pm - Hendoustan, Indian Carnatic music
August 19, 12 pm - Jenny Chen, 11 year old pianist
August 26, 12 pm - Meta Epstein, harp; Barbara Butler, organ

🎟️ $10 at the door, youth free.
📍 St John's Anglican Church, Lunenburg

07/27/2026

Each summer, Musique Royale partners with the renowned Boxwood Festival to bring the Best of Boxwood concert tour to communities across Nova Scotia as part of its Summer Festival. Drawn from the festival's exceptional faculty and guest artists, the tour celebrates the rich traditions of folk music and dance from the Maritimes, Scotland, Ireland, Québec, and beyond. Audiences provinewide get the up close experience of the music and joyful spirit that defines the Boxwood Festival, where musicians of all generations gather in Lunenburg for an immersive week of workshops, concerts, and musical exchange.

The concerts will include music, song, and dance! This year's ensemble brings together six outstanding traditional musicians: Québec fiddler Alexis Chartrand, percussive dancer Nic Gareiss, Scottish harper Màiri Chaimbeul, Irish concertina player and singer Brenda Castles, multi-instrumentalist Rennie Pearson, and flutist and piper Chris Norman. Join us at historic venues in Marshy Hope, River Denys Mountain, Blandford, Wolfville, Digby, and Margaretsville from August 1–6.

📍🌊 Tour itinerary:
Saturday August 1, 7:30 pm - Bethel Presbyterian Church, Antigonish
Sunday August 2, 4 pm - St Margaret's of Scotland, River Denys Mountain
Monday August 3, 7 pm - St Barnabas Anglican Church, Blandford
Tuesday August 4, 7 pm - St John’s Anglican Church, Wolfville
Wednesday August 5, 7 pm - Trinity Anglican Church, Digby
Thursday August 6, 7 pm - Evergreen Theatre, Margaretsville

🎟️ Admission: $25 advance, $30 at the door, youth free (some exceptions apply)

musiqueroyale.com

07/26/2026

Klezmer, Jazz & Folk: Queen Kong Live!

Queen Kong is a Toronto-based ensemble known for its explosive blend of contemporary klezmer, jazz, and modern folk traditions.Queen Kong has earned national recognition in Canada, winning the Canadian Folk Music Award for Instrumental Group of the Year. The band features Lorie Wolf (drums, bandleader, composer), Max Forster (trumpet), Josseé MacInnes (clarinet), Nathan Dell-Vandenberg (trombone), Graham Campbell (guitar) and Tom Richards (sousaphone).

🎻 Tuesday July 28 at 7 pm
📍Old Confidence Lodge, Riverport
🎟️ Admission: $25 advance, $30 at the door, youth free

Need some live EPIC JEWISH dance music? The Horah Machine books the...

07/22/2026

Part of the Wednesdays at Noon series, Musique Royale welcomes tenor C.D. Saint and pianist Hannah Parks to perform today at 12 pm at St John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. C.D. Saint is a tenor based in Whitehorse, collaborating for the first time with Hannah Parks for their concert today.

Their program starts with intimate airs de cour of the seventeenth century and then moves to refined mélodies of the Belle Époque and the shimmering colours of early twentieth-century Impressionism. We encounter music written for royal courts, Parisian salons, and the concert stage. Concluding with Ravel's radiant settings of Greek folk songs, written in 1904–06, these five miniature songs are Ravel's exquisite settings of traditional Greek folk melodies he heard from friends of Greek heritage in Paris. Rather than elaborate arrangements, Ravel preserves their simplicity and directness, colouring each song with his distinctive harmonic palette and extraordinary sensitivity to text.

Wednesdays at Noon is a series of music presentations at St. John’s Anglican Church in Lunenburg. Concerts are roughly 45 minutes in length and are held every Wednesday at 12 pm through July and August. Performances feature artists from the local and national scene in an eclectic mix of presentations. These performances will draw residents and tourists to enjoy music within beautiful and historic setting of St John’s, the second-oldest Anglican church in Canada, and first church established in Lunenburg. Admission is $10 at the door, youth free. Programming supports the St John’s Music Program.

07/13/2026

From August 12-16, Musique Royale presents Hendoustan, a dialogue between Persian and Indian classical music. Featuring musicians Aditya Verma, sarod; Anjana Srinivasan, Carnatic violin; Mohammad Sahraei, tar; Ziya Tabassian, tombak, concerts take place in Lunenburg, Annapolis Royal, Wolfville, Halifax, Arichat and Baddeck.

Across centuries, the cultures of Persia and the Indian subcontinent have been bound by trade, poetry, scholarship, and courtly exchange. Musicians travelled these same routes, carrying with them modes, rhythms, and improvisational traditions that would gradually diverge, but musically they continue to speak a recognizably shared language. Hendoustan reunites these parallel lineages. Musique Royale welcomes Nova Scotian audiences to experience this voyage through ancient sounds.

📍🎻 Tour itinerary:
Wednesday August 12 at 12 pm - St John’s Anglican Church, Lunenburg
Wednesday August 12 at 7 pm - St Luke's Anglican Church, Annapolis Royal
Thursday August 13 at 7 pm - Manning Memorial Chapel, Wolfville
Friday August 14 at 7 pm - St David's Presbyterian Church, Halifax
Saturday August 15 at 7 pm - St John's Centre of the Arts, Arichat
Sunday August 16 at 7:30 pm - Midsummer Music Series, AG Bell Museum, Baddeck

🎟️ Admission: $25 advance, $30 at the door, youth free (some exceptions apply)

Sarod player Aditya Verma is a leading interpreter of the Maihar-Senia lineage of North Indian classical music and a scholar of Indo-Persian musical history. She is joined by Carnatic violinist Anjana Srinivasan, whose vocal-like ornamentation and intricate rhythmic fluency represent the South Indian tradition. These Indian classical specialists will collaborate with Persian tar player Mohammad Sahraei, whose roots are in the poetic radif repertoire, and tombak master Ziya Tabassian, whose refined and expressive playing dazzles within complex rhythmic systems.

07/13/2026

Each year, a new roster of musicians are featured in the Best of Boxwood concert tour, with performances across Nova Scotia part of Musique Royale’s Summer Festival. This tour celebrates the energetic, traditional dance music of Maritimes Canada, Scotland, Ireland and more. Taking place annually in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, the Boxwood Festival is renowned for its inspiring, multi-generational environment of workshops and concerts centered around traditional music and early music, with experts and amateurs providing an immersive artistic experience. The Best of Boxwood tour showcases the fruits of these collaborations across Nova Scotia.

This edition features an extraordinary ensemble of traditional musicians: Québec fiddler Alexis Chartrand, percussive dancer Nic Gareiss, Scottish harper Màiri Chaimbeul, Irish concertina player and singer Brenda Castles, multi-instrumentalist Rennie Pearson, and flutist and piper Chris Norman. The tour is a vibrant celebration of the living musical traditions of Scotland, Ireland, Québec, featured at historic venues in Marshy Cove, River Denys Mountain, Blandford, Wolfville, Digby and Margaretsville from August 1-6.

📍🌊 Tour itinerary:
Saturday August 1, 7:30 pm - Bethel Presbyterian Church, Antigonish
Sunday August 2, 4 pm - St Margaret's of Scotland, River Denys Mountain
Monday August 3, 7 pm - St Barnabas Anglican Church, Blandford
Tuesday August 4, 7 pm - St John’s Anglican Church, Wolfville
Wednesday August 5, 7 pm - Trinity Anglican Church, Digby
Thursday August 6, 7 pm - Evergreen Theatre, Margaretsville

🎟️ Admission: $25 advance, $30 at the door, youth free (some exceptions apply)

07/12/2026

Leading up to the annual Boxwood Festival in Lunenburg, Musique Royale welcomes you to an evening of traditional music featuring wooden flute virtuoso and Boxwood Festival's founder and director, Chris Norman and who will be joined by the fabulous multi-instrumentalist Rennie Pearson. The concert takes place at Cecilia's Retreat in Mahone Bay overlooking a magnificent view of Maders Cove on Friday July 24 at 5 pm.

📅 Friday July 24 at 5 pm
📍 Cecilia's Retreat, Mahone Bay
🎟️ $35, by advance reservation

About the artists:
Chris Norman is a Canadian flutist, composer, instrument maker, and educator whose work has helped shape the international traditional music scene for more than three decades. Originally from Halifax, Nova Scotia, he has performed as a soloist, with orchestras, and with ensembles including the Baltimore Consort, Concerto Caledonia, Helicon, and the Chris Norman Ensemble. His compositions and recordings have been featured by the CBC, BBC, and NPR, and he is the founder and artistic director of the Boxwood Festival, now presented in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. His contributions to the arts have been recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal and an honorary Doctor of Laws from Dalhousie University.

Rennie Pearson is a New Zealand multi-instrumentalist specializing in Celtic music on wooden flute, whistles, guitar, bodhrán, fiddle, and voice. He has performed and taught throughout New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, China, and the United States, appearing at festivals including Boxwood, CelticANZ, Ceol Aneas, ScotsStrings, and the National Celtic Festival. He has toured with productions including Rhythm of the Dance, Celtica, and Celtic Illusion, and has released several recordings, including From Across the Seas (2022) and AIR (2023). Together, Norman and Pearson bring decades of experience performing and teaching traditional Celtic music on international stages.

07/12/2026

Musique Royale welcomes contemporary klezmer band Queen Kong to perform at the Old Confidence Lodge in Riverport on Tuesday July 28 at 7 pm. Queen Kong is a Toronto-based ensemble known for its explosive blend of contemporary klezmer, jazz, and modern folk traditions.

Queen Kong has earned national recognition in Canada, winning the Canadian Folk Music Award for Instrumental Group of the Year. The band features Lorie Wolf (drums, bandleader, composer), Max Forster (trumpet), Josseé MacInnes (clarinet), Nathan Dell-Vandenberg (trombone), Graham Campbell (guitar) and Tom Richards (sousaphone).

📅 Tuesday July 28 at 7:00 pm
📍 Old Confidence Lodge, Riverport
🎟️ $25 advance, $30 at the door, youth free

About Queen Kong:
Queen Kong specializes in the performance of both traditional and original klezmer music. In April 2024, the band was awarded the “Instrumental Band of the Year” by the Canadian Folk Music Awards, while also scoring nominations for “Instrumental Composer of the Year” (CFMA) and Performing Artist of the Year (Folk Canada). The Vancouver Sun lauded Fray as among "five new albums from women musicians you need to hear."

Queen Kong has been featured in many world, folk, and jazz festivals and venues across Canada. In November 2023, Queen Kong embarked on their first tour of western Canada, and in 2025 made their international debut in Ireland.

Queen Kong’s will be touring in support of their 2nd studio recording "Mitsve Tants", which will feature modern arrangements of Hasidic Jewish melodies from a collection of songs that are sung to a Jewish bride and accompanied by guests’ ecstatic dancing. Different melodies can be found all over towns (or shtetls) in Eastern Europe. The dance is usually a highly charged emotional moment, wherein the dancer prays silently for the couple's success in life. These melodies have been arranged using a variety of styles such as jazz, funk, rock and improv, and draw inspiration from John Zorn's Masada and Bar Kokhba projects.

A Festival of Music in Historic Nova Scotia