Nova Scotia’s diverse cultural tapestry and numerous live performance venues have combined to create a vibrant music scene encompassing everything from Celtic Folk Music, Acadian, and Aboriginal roots music, to country, hip hop, pop and rock.
There are as many different ways to soak up a memorable music experience here as there are varieties of music. Legendary Cape Breton Island Kitchen parties and Ceilidhs are where musicians like Natalie MacMaster, the Rankins, Gordie Sampson and the Barra MacNeils honed their skills while friends and family danced to their jigs and reels. Take a Halifax tour of the pub and club scene and you'll find the venues where many big names like Sloan and Juno-nominated alternative rocker Matt Mays got their start, with crowds of die-hard fans singing along. Halifax is also the site of major music happenings, having both hosted the Junos and the Rolling Stones in 2006.
Annual festivals like Celtic Colours International Festival and TD Canada Trust Atlantic Jazz Festival put local and international stars in the spotlight. Halifax hosts big stage productions like DRUM! a rhythmic extravaganza celebrating our four founding cultures – Aboriginal, Acadian, Black, and Celtic.
Across the province, churches, wharves, parks, and small theatres become performance venues for great Nova Scotia music festivals, events and performances like:
Let the music you’ll find here become the soundtrack of a great Nova Scotia vacations.