Festival to mark decade of live music with performance from Serena Ryder

JUNO award-winning artist Serena Ryder is pictured. (Muskoka Music Festival)

To celebrate 10 years of live music and more than a century of performing arts at an iconic opera house, a special night is planned to mark the occasion this summer.

This year also marks the final one for the festival. While it’s the final curtain call, it’s sure to go out with a bang.

JUNO-award winning Canadian singer-songwriter Serena Ryder will be featured in Muskoka Music Festival (MMF) at the Gravenhurst Opera House on Aug. 22.

Serena Ryder has won seven JUNO awards, including the Adult Contemporary Album of the Year for her album ‘The Art of Falling Apart,’ which details her mental health wellness journey.

She is also an advocate for mental health. Her hit, ‘What I Wouldn’t Do’ was used in the Kids Help Phone’s Feel Out Loud 2023 campaign, the largest mental health campaign in Canadian history.

Ryder is known for crossing genres from pop to folk to roots and even Christmas and children’s music.

Joining her on stage is special guest Mimi O’Bonsawin, a roots singer-songwriter and member of the Odanak First Nation, whose music focuses on the beauty of the land, inspired by her love of gardening.

The Muskoka Music Festival—formerly Sawdust City Music Festival—has taken place at different venues over the years, but having it held at The Gravenhurst Opera House is significant as the building is brimming with stories of live entertainment spanning 125 years.

Miranda Mulholland, festival founder and artistic director, who also happens to be a JUNO-nominated artist, says the opera house is deeply personal to her.

“It’s a lineup that feels like a love letter to everything MMF has stood for - world class homegrown performers singing songs on the Opera House stage in my beloved Gravenhurst,” Mulholland shares.

Mulholland’s great-great-grandfather, Charles Mickle, was the driving force behind the building of the opera house when he was mayor of the town.

“Ten years felt like the right arc for this chapter. A decade of summers, a decade of music, and a chance to close with the kind of night I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” Mulholland says. “Look at all the incredible artists we’ve welcomed to Gravenhurst! There’s something fitting about closing this chapter in the building where, in a sense, it all began long before any of us were here to imagine it.”

Other iconic artists that have performed at the music festival are The Jim Cuddy Band, Loreena McKennitt, Noah Reid, Ron Sexsmith and The Trews.

Tickets are selling fast with half of them already sold.

You can purchase tickets on the Muskoka Music Festival website.