By Jim Barber
For the third year in a row, voices will be raised, spirits elevated, diversity celebrated and community embraced as Our Music Festival returns to Toronto, on Saturday, May 30, with a powerfully compelling and dynamic lineup of artists, expanded programming and a second venue.
Initially the brainchild of Toronto-based singer/songwriter, dancer, actor, film director, and educator Andrea Ramolo, the event’s third incarnation is its most ambitious offering, and one which continues the mission for which it was born in the first place – “Bringing together an inspiring lineup of performers across genres, shining a spotlight on the powerful voices and stories often underrepresented in the music industry. More than just a music festival, it’s a community movement — creating space for connection, empowerment, and the joy of live music,” according to the event’s website.
In the time between the 2025 edition of Our Music Festival, which was held at The Great Hall in Toronto, Ramolo created a not for profit organization to help manage and facilitate the event, bringing together a dynamic and experienced roster of artists, organizers and entrepreneurs to form a board of directors. It includes Amanda Walther of Dala, artist/festival organizer Tania Joy (Springtide Music Festival), food insecurity advocate and entrepreneur Daisy Orantes (Danny’s Backpack, Good to be Good), broadcast journalist and host Adwoa Nsiah-Yeboah (CP 24, CHUM-FM), Marissa Kokkoros, founder of Aura Freedom International, and producer/engineer/songwriter/artist Lisa Patterson.
The main evening concert, being held at The Mod Club (722 College St., Toronto) starting at 7:30 p.m., will feature the brilliant Alysha Brilla – co-presented with Small World Music; Anyma Ora’ , co-presented with the International Indigenous Music Summit and TKMF Productions, as well as Ammoye, Kimmortal and Maïa Davies. All of this extraordinary and genre-defying talent will be under the same roof on the same evening, with tickets at just $40!
Earlier in the day, Our Music Festival organizers will introduce a new component in their celebration of women and gender diverse voices, with a special afternoon Song Circle, being held at Small World Centre (180 Shaw St. Unit 101, Toronto.) This more intimate, interactive show is intended to shine a spotlight on emerging talent, and will feature Aniqa Dear, TRP.P, Angela Saini, Maya Killtron, and Leah Holtom. Tickets for this showcase are $25. A festival bundle day pass costs just $55 and allows for admission to both events.
The festival has broadened its reach, expanded in size, and become more dynamic and diverse for each outing. It has been able to attract more sponsors, more media attention and a growing audience in an impressively short period of time. As the individual most responsible for starting and propagating this wonderfully inclusive event, Ramolo said that, while she is pleased and proud of the progress being made, it’s been a lot of work, some of it frustrating but the end goal – the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel – helps keep her focused and inspired at times when her energy flags.
“I’ve been constantly hustling and feel like I haven’t had the time to look back. It’s so great that the festival is expanding and growing, from its vision to its programming. This year we’ve added an early afternoon program at a different venue. I wanted to try and create as much space for as many artists as I possibly could and the goal is to evolve in such a way that it becomes a full weekend festival with headlining acts in the evenings, and workshop stages and mentorship opportunities for emerging artists in the afternoons. We will get there but putting on a live music event of this nature has of course had its challenges in this day and age. I don’t want to use words like struggle because I’m grateful that we get to do this, but it is so difficult to put on live concerts these days. People are non-committal. The world seems to be getting uglier and uglier around us and with all this trauma, I think many people are just in survival mode. However, this festival is a gentle reminder in the power of music and art to heal us and this world needs a lot of that right now. But don’t we always need art? I think so. I want this festival to run for as long as humanly possible. I will be happy to see the day when the wheels are turning with ease and there’s a sustainable infrastructure and operative funding. Our Music Festival is a viable live music event, but also a necessary one and we want to ensure that the powers that be that make the decisions on whose voices are important are supporting this vision,” she said, but added that since there is no stable funding, any setback, or delay is not only disheartening but also stressful.
“We got turned down for a few grants this week, which broke my heart, but then we also got Factor sponsorship which helps exponentially. And we have brought some co-presenters on board this year and this collaborative nature has really gotten me excited. We cannot do this alone and to truly make larger visions come to life these days, we have to work together.”
A veteran of the Canadian music scene for more than two decades, Ramolo has an intimate understanding of the vagaries and vicissitudes of the music industry – the good, the bad and the ugly. She toured relentlessly for years, sometimes living out of her suitcase. She’s released records as a solo artist and as a duo, to great acclaim. She knows the challenges that face all artists in trying to make music their career, but particularly those of women and gender diverse artists. There’s often an extra layer to dig through to get any sort of equitable consideration in so many aspects of the industry, from slots on festivals and tours, to being taken seriously by commercial radio. Rather than simply shouting to the heavens and holding onto resentment over the failings of the music industry and broader society to level the proverbial playing field, she acted.
The inspiration for Our Music Festival actually came from a previous initiative to bring together women artists as a form of emotional support, but also to develop practical strategies to help redress the many imbalances and injustices they faced in the music industry.
“I’m going to go back in time a little bit to give due diligence and respect to the foundational moments. Years ago, myself and a group of colleagues began a women’s music night every Monday at a tiny venue in Toronto called Not My Dog, and we called it Ladies in Waiting, which ran for about four or five years. And we packed it every week full of female-led acts. We would back each other up and play bass and drums and sing harmonies for each other until the wee hours of the morning. I learned a lot from being one of the founding members of that collective and people loved it because it was in that spirit that we were lifting each other up,” she explained.
“Then fast forward to that horrible pandemic time, I was invited into a very special and tender online musician support group for women and non-binary artists. So many artists I love and look up to were a part of this online gathering – like Sarah Slean and Hill Kourkoutis, Amanda Rheaume, Melissa McLelland Jill Barber, the Good Lovelies, Madison Violet, Dala, Sarah MacDougall, Ember Swift– women that I so respect and admire. It was a group where we all came together to try and figure out how we were going to navigate our music careers during COVID. And what it really became was this intimate space to honestly share our trauma and struggles during such a strange time. It was such a beautiful personal group and we would talk a lot about this kind of stuff, because we were sharing our struggles as women or gender diverse folks in the industry. That, again, ignited me and I realized that we all share this struggle and feel this gap and we need to do something something about it. Fast-forward a few years later and I went to see a show at the new Hugh’s Room Live venue and the people who booked it said they would love for me to play their new venue because the old venue had kind of been like home to me. They said they had an opening in March [2024] and at that time, I didn’t really want to be in the spotlight. I didn’t want to do my show and since March is Women’s Month, it just kind of came to me. They offered me this slot and I asked them if it would be okay if I ran a multi-artist festival instead and made it a Women’s Day thing and they said absolutely. That is where Our Music Festival was born.
“That first year, we had soul and R&B, we had folk, we had some alt-country. The performers were a lot of my really, really close friends in the music industry – artists like Mimi O’Bonsawin, Amanda Rheaume, Skye Wallace, Brenley from Madison Violet, Caroline from the Good Lovelies, Tanika Charles , Yarro, and Tania Joy, who is now on our board of directors. Those people helped start this festival and helped to create a magic I’ve never witnessed before at a music festival. They packed that house that first year and helped me plant the seeds. To this day, some of them still talk about how special that evening was for them, and for me that is the biggest reward. That’s what I wanted to create for the artists, because I am an artist and I know how it feels to feel like you’re just a number or to feel like you’re always having to fight for that one female headlining spot on the stage. I mean, everyone is so good. We have so many important things to say and sing about, and we need to uplift each other. So this is what the festival is all about. It’s about creating this space, but it’s also about supporting one another in a real way.”
But here’s the rub. Here’s the situation that still arouses such frustration in Ramolo’s spirit. Yes, the event has been all of what she says and more, but those who actually come to the shows are those you’d expect to attendo a show like that: the artists, their friends and family, people who are active advocates for women and gender diverse artists. Where are the people who just want to come out and hear excellent music? Where are the people looking for something new for an evening out? To be even more blunt, and this is coming from the author of this article as well as the subject of the piece – where are the fellas? Questions like this are crying out to be asked, considered, and answered.
Is it because there is still a deep recess of misogyny even in the most progressive of men’s hearts. Is it because men are still conditioned to see women artists, women musicians, women songwriters as inferior to their male counterparts? Is it because they think Our Music Festival is part of the ‘woke’ agenda, and don’t want to be hit over the head by politics? For a significant segment of the population, it’s mostly likely some or all of the above, which is both maddening and disheartening. Ramolo acknowledges this but remains unbowed.
“Many of my colleagues and I speak to our frustration about this because we are trying to make a difference and to shift what we are seeing as, and I don’t know what else to call it, but there is this ingrained misogyny in our industry. And it’s not only our industry, it infiltrates most facets of society. When you love women and gender-diverse artists, you show up for them. When you love their music, you buy it. You buy a ticket to show up and listen to it. It’s just performative allyship when people are talking the talk of equity, but then don’t live that equity through action. I really do believe that some people just do not want to support women. Of course there are true fans and supporters, but there’s not enough of them lining up to be a part of the magic in an event like this. And I’m not seeing enough males in the audience. Do men not listen to music written by and performed by women or gender-diverse folks? Really? Why? I want the men that don’t to ask themselves why because they are skipping over some truly brilliant artists. We want to fill the venues for Our Music Festival with not only women and gender diverse fans, we want to fill it with everybody. We want a full house because these artists deserve it.,” Ramolo said, her voice tinged not with anger, but disappointment, but also with a steely resolve.
“So it’s frustrating to do this work sometimes, even though a lot of us artists and organizers are trying our best to co-create a new industry. One of the co-chairs of the festival board, Lisa Patterson, runs a producer’s event called The Listening Party where she spotlights women and gender-diverse producers . I’d love to see some more community support and corporate backing for such initiatives. It’s great that we’re supporting each other. We need to support each other, but where is the support from the outside? Where are the men? Where is the money? Show up, guys. Let’s go. There is still a huge gap. There’s major gender disparity that is not shifting at the rate it should. Yes, people are doing good. There are some festivals doing a great job at programming. I saw the lineup for the Northern Lights Festival in Sudbury this year which I’ve played a few times before – brilliant programming, and they just brought a new female artistic director on board which is exciting. We can no longer wait for changes to happen in the industry itself. We have to change it ourselves and that’s why it comes with a lot of heavy lifting. I am in this for the long haul and you know, I feel sad for the people that are not coming out because they’re missing out on some really brilliant music and some fascinating artists that I bet you they would love.”
At a very fundamental level, Our Music Festival is about broadening horizons and expanding minds. It’s about opportunity. It’s about shedding old ideas and traditional notions and understanding that music knows no boundaries of race, gender, culture or genre. It is an elemental vibration that impacts humans in the same way regardless of who they are. Building a setting and fostering and environment where women and gender diverse artists can gather in peace and safety, surrounded by openness, and encouragement is the short term goal of Ramolo and the other organizers. Long term, the hope is that society gets to the place where all art, all music, all creators are accepted for who they are and assessed or enjoyed solely on the merits of their creative outpourings.
“If I could leave some words of encouragement to all music fans and listeners out there, they already know that there is magic and healing in live music and in the concert format. Gathering together and supporting one another, whether it’s the audience or the people onstage – it’s not woke. It’s about coming together in community to listen to incredible music. And we’ve been doing that from the beginning of time as human beings. So why not come out to something like Our Music Festival. There are new faces and new voices on the stage. Let’s listen to them because they have important things to sing about and they’re putting on some really great shows,” she said.
“I’m not saying that every festival needs to be like ours, however when you look at the larger festivals, not only in the United States but across Canada too, there’s still a long way to go. There’s an Instagram profile I follow called Book More Women and they take a poster from a festival and they eliminate all of the male-led bands and artists on the poster and there is often 10% or so of the names left over that are women and very seldom gender-diverse artists. That’s just not right. And it’s boring! So we’re going to keep on doing what we do and create excellent programming and support brilliant artists and hope that this light that we’re shining on them allows other people to sort of wake up and come closer to see what they’ve been missing out on.”
The outdated attitudes, long-standing prejudices and a general lack of consideration for underrepresented and marginalized people within the music industry is, as discussed above, part of a larger societal deficiency. It is a structural issue as much as it is an issue of large swathes of people with power and influence not yet understanding that gender, skin pigmentation and cultural backgrounds differing from their own are not lesser than, that difference and diversity is a strength for a society and a nation, that it builds dynamism and resilience, and adds a vibrancy and sense of colourful adventure to all aspects of life.
Ramolo talked about how musical friends within the Indigenous community have also been battling to have their place and space legitimized, and their voices heard, and not just heard but recognized and celebrated for their inherent excellence. The previously mentioned Amanda Rheaume, a close friend of Ramolo’s and a powerfully compelling Metis artist, co-founded an indigenous record label called Ishkōdé Records, which is owned and managed by women – Rheaume and co-founder ShoShana Kish of the groundbreaking indigenous blues/roots act, Digging Roots.
“I definitely know that they work their assess off and they are also tired but their hard work shines through. I mean, they’re a fully women-run record label. One of their artists, Aysanabee took home two Junos the other night [for Contemporary Indigenous Artist or Group of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year] and he got up on stage and said he worked with the baddest of badass women in the industry. Amanda and Shoshona saw a gap and filled it. They did it themselves. We need to get to a point where it becomes normalized to have equity on our stages not as a token but because it’s alluring and interesting and necessary and just. And we need to not only do this for ourselves, but for the young people coming up after us. We need to create these opportunities for younger artists. For me, the fire that keeps on being lit under me is that every time I work with a young person and I see their talent and their potential I realize they need to see people that look like them on the big stages. They need to see people like them winning so they know that it’s possible for them too, because we cannot become what we can’t see,” she said.
“And that’s why I am encouraging people, men particularly, all men, middle aged men, young men, seniors, come and support the artists. Come support them. They want to connect. They really do, we all do. We want to build community. We want people’s hearts to beat together and their feet to move together on the dance floor and for people to feel vulnerable together when they recognize themselves in a song, and the only way to experience that and to allow artists to continue making the art they make is to come out to shows. Buy a ticket, bring a date, bring a baseball team, buy the full festival pass to Our Music Festival. It’s going to be an incredibly beautiful, beautiful event.”
It has worked before, to a certain extent. More than a quarter century ago, another Canadian singer/songwriter decided to do something about the discrimination against women and entrenched glass ceiling that seemed to be in place in so many facets of the music industry. In the late 1990s. Sarah McLachlan created Lilith Fair and propelled some brilliant and evocative artists to the fore for the first time and also inspired untold numbers of girls and young women to pick up guitars, write songs about what they wanted to write songs about, and tour the world.
“That’s what happened with Lilith Fair. That’s what Sarah said in the documentary [Lilith Fair: Building A Mystery] that promoters were telling her ‘we’re not taking this on, Sarah. We’re not doing Lilith Fair, nobody’s going to come.’ And then they were wrong. She got a group of women together and together they changed history. So yeah, we need to shift this world and it feels daunting sometimes. You have to remain hopeful or else you won’t keep on going. You won’t keep on fighting the good fight,” said Ramolo, who attended the Toronto premiere of the documentary with her Our Music Festival board.
The evidence that the societal imbalance and the old ways of thinking in terms women’s perceived roles, their presumed strengths and weaknesses and their value go beyond the institutional structures of arts, of academia, of politics and business is as entrenched amongst the general population is still rife. Within the general fan base of those who do go to live music shows, misogyny and objectification towards women, combined with some twisted sense of entitlement, is still ominous and alarming in its frequency and profusion. The shift in thinking Ramolo – as well as loads of therapists, sociologists, and activists are saying is necessary and overdue – is a fundamental one, but also one that goes contrary to the warped sense of manhood and masculinity that has become the bane of social media and the podcast-verse over the last decade or so.
“I’ll say that it still exists. And I’ll say that it’s always existed. And I’ll say that things won’t improve until we eradicate misogyny and until men in our world feel safe and okay to share their feelings and emotions and tell people they’re not okay and try to find a healthy way to express masculinity because the world has told them that they need to act tough and to use violence and domination to rule and to treat women in a certain way. So it’s this entire relearning that has to happen and I just feel like we need to all work a little harder together in community. We will all benefit from this shift and I truly believe you will all benefit from coming out to Our Music Festival.” Ramolo said.
For more information on Our Music Festival, visit https://www.ourmusicfestival.ca.
For more information on Andrea Ramolo, visit https://www.andrearamolo.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
