Editorial

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For the seventh straight year, the team at La Scena Musicale brings you our annual Guide to Canadian Summer Festivals in classical music, supplemented for the second year by our guide to Canadian jazz festivals. This year, the 95 festivals in our guide--up from last year's 84 festivals--show that classical music festivals in Canada are alive and well. Why are there so many great festivals in Canada? The high concentration of festivals in Quebec shows that government encouragement does indeed help. Let's hope that this continues.

Putting together Canada's most complete guide to classical and jazz summer festivals was not easy. Our dedicated calendar team worked extra hours tirelessly to compile the listings of over one thousand different performances. We've relied on the kind cooperation of all the festivals to submit their event information in electronic format. No doubt we will continue to receive more details after this issue hits the press, so please visit our Festivals web page <festivals.scena.org> for updates.

The national June summer festival issue is among our most widely-read; this year 62,000 copies are being distributed across Canada in the combined distribution network of both LSM and The Music Scene.

Looking towards 2003-04, La Scena Musicale will embark on its eighth full year as a 10-times a year magazine, and The Music Scene will begin its second year of service to classical music enthusiasts in English Canada (Southern Ontario and Western Canada) with three issues (September, December and March).

These efforts are brought to you by The Music Scene/La Scène Musicale, a registered charity dedicated to promoting classical music in Canada. To raise funds to continue this valuable service, on September 17, 2003, we will present our second Public's Choice Benefit Gala in Montreal. Please help us choose the concert programme by filling out the ballot at the beginning of the magazine. (Incidentally, our first Gala, held on September 12, 2001, may have the dubious honour of being the first Canadian concert dedicated to peace and to the victims of the September 11 tragedy.)

Have a musical summer.

Wah Keung Chan, President, The Music Scene/La Scène Musicale