Arts Roundup
June 11, 2026

Music

• Three Edmonton artists — ARDN, Mouraine, and Jr. Rhodes — are up for rap and hip hop artist of the year at the Western Canadian Music Awards. ARDN and rock band Calling All Captains are also up for breakout artist of the year. Other Edmonton-based nominees include Cikwes, Nuela Charles, Secondhand Dreamcar, The Mbira Renaissance Band, Aretha Tillotson, Duo Majoya, Emilie Cecilia LeBel, Marc Beaudin, and Mike Schlosser. Winterruption and its sister festivals are up for impact in live music. Voting closes June 17, and awards will be announced at BreakOut West in Victoria from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4.
• Double Lunch is expanding beyond show promotion to offer music industry resources, including a "band hotel" in Windsor Park for touring musicians, an Edmonton music listings page, a Canada-wide festival directory, and grant resources for artists. The organization has launched a Patreon to help fund its activities.
• The Edmonton Folk Music Festival issued a low ticket alert, with four-day personal passes more than 90% sold, and single tickets on the Saturday sold out. The festival runs from Aug. 6 to 9 at Gallagher Park.
• Celeigh Cardinal spoke to Arts Habitat about the benefits of her songwriting studio space at ArtsHub McLuhan House. Cardinal, who moved into the space in March, has begun writing her next album. She will perform at the Highlandia festival on June 13.
• The Covenant Foundation is seeking donations to fund a permanent music therapy program in the Grey Nuns neonatal intensive care unit after a four-month pilot with artist and music therapist Rebecca Lappa showed positive results for premature babies and their families.
• Berlin-based Canadian artist Peaches has expanded her North American tour, adding Edmonton's Midway Music Hall on Sept. 2. Tickets go on sale June 12.

Visual arts

• The Works Art & Design Festival has published its 2026 exhibit listings, with installations in Churchill Square and various other downtown locations. The Art Gallery of Alberta's exhibit, called Here I Am, shows the work of 14 artists who recently relocated to Canada. The festival runs from June 20 to July 1.
• At the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference on June 7, the City of Edmonton unveiled the Indigenous Legacy Paddle designed by Sharon Rose Kootenay. The paddle will travel to future conferences.
• Edify compiled a list of shops carrying locally made Father's Day cards, including Seven80, The Makers Keep, and Pop Collective.

Theatre and dance

• Andrew MacDonald-Smith delivers a tour de force performance, playing more than three dozen characters, in Teatro Live's Fully Committed, wrote Liz Nicholls. Lucy Haines agreed, praising the veteran actor's vocal and physical transformations. And Liane Faulder called the show a must-see. The production, directed by Farren Timoteo, runs through June 21 at the Varscona Theatre.
• Liz Nicholls previewed a couple of productions taking place at Nextfest. The Bin, by first-time playwright Lexi House, is a horror-inflected play set in a cabin in Athabasca that explores the intersection of human and animal worlds. Fantasies in Trash: in eleven movements is a collectively written "industrial puppet symphony" by transgender and gender-diverse artists that features giant cardboard puppets from discarded materials.
• The University of Alberta's drama department has selected Brad Fraser as the 2026 Lee Playwright in Residence. Fraser, author of Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love and Poor Super Man, said he looks forward to returning to Edmonton and taking full advantage of the gift of time to concentrate on his work.
• The theme of the Edmonton Riverhawks' June 11 game is The Theatre Kids are Taking Over!!. Performers from the Citadel Theatre and Fringe Theatre will be part of the show, and any youth wearing a theatre character costume will get in free with a paying adult.

Books and publishing

• Naomi McIlwraith explained the serendipitous journey that resulted in one of her poems becoming a picture book called The Great Gathering Place. "I use the river as a metaphor for this place in between," she told Windspeaker. "My Indigenous ancestors are on the north shore, and my non-Indigenous ancestors are on the south shore of the river. And the river is this beautiful place in between."
• The Great Gathering Place, which launched in Edmonton on June 6, topped the fiction books on the latest Edmonton bestseller list from the Book Publishers Association of Alberta.
• Writer and YouthWrite creator Gail Sidonie Šobat reflected on Edmonton's arts scene in an interview with Laurence Miall. "Edmonton punches above its weight in the arts," she said. "I think that's down to the tenacity of individual human beings who don't want to see theatres dry up or bookstores close."
• University of Alberta alumna and professional editor Rachael Lammie discussed her middle-grade novel called Simon's Time on the U of A Reads podcast. The book explores growing up and finding connection during the pandemic.

Screen industries

• An episode of Crip Trip, Daniel Ennett and Frederick Kroetsch's series about life as a quadruple amputee in the arts, won a Golden Sheaf Award in the lifestyle category at the Yorkton Film Festival. "I promise the show is fun," Ennett told CBC's Edmonton AM. "We get up to plenty of shenanigans, but it does have a lot of heart, and we do want to platform issues."
• Seven digital content creators from Edmonton are among the 63 selected by STORYHIVE for funding, training, and the distribution of six-episode video series. Daylin Cooper, Dolly Cepeda Montufar, Joshua Butters, and Stephanie Nhan got funding for the first season of their series; Nella Brodett will do a second season of Open Greens with Franella; Jillian MacPhee will do a third season of Garden Stories; and Martha Livingstone will do a fourth season of Music with Martha Messmaker - Rock 'N' Learn.
• Rainbow Visions Film Festival has released the full lineup for its June 18 to 21 run. The opening night film, Leviticus, is a supernatural horror from the producers of The Babadook and Talk to Me. Other selections include My Brother's Killer, a documentary about a 1990 murder in Los Angeles's queer community, and programs spotlighting the work of Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan as well as filmmaker Barbara Hammer.
• The makers of a short film called The Lowly Juggler spoke to the St. Albert Gazette about winning Best Use of a Secret Element at the Edmonton Short Film Festival's 48-Hour Filmmaking Competition. The cellphone-shot film will be screened on Oct. 19.

More headlines

• Game master Kevin Douangmany of The Resplendent Cave is on a quest to work with more non-profits after a successful fundraiser for the Centre for Autism Services Alberta helped people with autism find joy in collective storytelling. Tabletop role-playing games present "a viable way of combining games and doing good," he told Taproot. Douangmany will also be part of Game Con Canada in Edmonton from June 19 to 21.
• Postmedia's guide to Edmonton's summer festival season covers more than 25 festivals, from New Music Edmonton's Now Hear This (which wraps up this weekend) to Down By the River from Sept. 18 to 20.
• O-day'min Daze, a new festival series presented by Kakio Productions and others, launched on May 30 in O-day'min Park. The event, supported by a $100,000 grant from the City of Edmonton, will see four more activations through the summer, culminating in a two-day celebration in September.
• Nine cast members of Letterkenny — including Jared Kesso, Nathan Dales, Michelle Mylett, and K. Trevor Wilson — are reuniting for a 2027 North American live tour featuring new sketches. The tour includes an Edmonton stop at the Edmonton EXPO Centre on March 7; presales begin June 15.

Happenings

Here are some events coming up over the next seven days:

• June 11: Film Screening: Animal Nation – Bison starting at 6pm at Royal Alberta Museum
• June 11: Deaf Heart starting at 6:30pm at Roxy Theatre
• June 11: Smooth Sips starting at 7pm at Frank's Community Pub
• June 12: Spill the Tea: Readings from the 2SLGBTQIA+ Human Library starting at 6:30pm at Robertson-Wesley United Church
• June 12: Rising Sounds – A Celebration of New Voices starting at 7:30pm at Mile Zero Dance
• June 12: Rachmaninoff on the Rocks starting at 8pm at Winspear Centre
• June 13: The World of the Watchers Receptions starting at 2pm at Alberta Craft Council
• June 13: Highlandia starting at 2pm at Henry Mitchell Park
• June 13: Indigenous Artist in Residence Final Showcase by Arsene Arcand starting at 5pm at ArtsHub Ortona
• June 14: The Greatest Hits: 20 Years of Fierce Art and Soul starting at 6pm at Winspear Centre
• June 15: World Building Fun for Fiction Writing starting at 7pm online
• June 17: Much Ado About Nothing starting at 7:30pm at William Hawrelak Park

And here are some upcoming events to keep in mind:

• June 18-21: Rainbow Visions Film Festival
• June 19-21: Thousand Faces Festival at Alberta Avenue Community Centre
• June 19-28: Edmonton International Jazz Festival

Visit the Taproot Edmonton Calendar for many more events in the Edmonton region.