The seventh annual Collingwood Music Festival returns to Collingwood, Ontario, from July 6 to 18, 2026, featuring over 220 musicians across 22 events. This year’s lineup mixes large choral works, world music, Indigenous performances, and intimate chamber concerts, with both free outdoor shows and ticketed indoor concerts at venues like First Presbyterian Church, the Shipyards Amphitheatre, and Creemore Village Green.
The festival opens on July 11 with the Elmer Iseler Singers, a 20-voice Toronto chamber choir led by Order of Canada recipient Lydia Adams. They will perform Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana and debut a new work by Juno Award-winning composer Andy Milne, commissioned by the festival. The closing concert on July 18 features the Juno-winning Toronto Mass Choir under Karen Burke, bringing gospel and jazz to the stage. Before the finale, a free workshop at 5 p.m. lets audience members learn and then sing alongside the choir during the evening performance.
Before the signature concerts, the festival hosts a five-day Youth Masterclass from July 6 to 10. Thirty young musicians will work with seven world-renowned teachers, and all classes are free for the public to observe. “You are welcome to sit in with every class for free – five days of top-notch music right here in your back yard,” the festival states.
Founder and artistic director Daniel Vnukowski, a concert pianist and radio broadcaster, says this year’s program reaches “a scale and intensity we have not presented before.” The festival, which started in 2019, relies on community support to operate: ticket sales cover less than one-third of costs, with the rest funded by donors and partners like the Canada Council for the Arts, Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Trillium Foundation, and the Town of Collingwood.
To keep the festival accessible, youth under 16 get in free when accompanied by a paying adult, and the Pay-What-You-Can outdoor series at the Shipyards Amphitheatre and Creemore Village Green means anyone can attend. Full details and tickets are available on the town’s 2026 Collingwood Music Festival page.
