About

Welcome to the Hamilton Music Festival 2025!

Competitive music festivals across Canada offer amateur musicians of all ages opportunities to share their talents and love of music. The Hamilton Music Festival, founded in 2016 and running from April 7 to May 3, 2025, strives to provide a friendly, supportive and inclusive competitive event with participants joining us from private music studios, music schools and school programs in the Greater Hamilton and Southern Ontario region.

The Hamilton Music Festival is a non-profit, charitable organization. In 2024, we had approximately 1300 entries and we awarded over $27,000.00 in scholarships to piano, voice, musical theatre, strings, woodwinds, classical guitar, choral and music writing participants. This year we are pleased to add organ as a new category.

The Hamilton Music Festival is produced each year by ten Board of Directors who volunteer their time, creating the syllabus, seeking out venues, engaging volunteers, selecting adjudicators and raising funds. We are grateful for the support from donors, sponsors and the many participants and their families for recognizing the HMF as a valuable contributor to cultural life.

For two years, HMF has received a grant from the local Incite Foundation for the Arts, founded by Carl and Kate Turkstra of Turkstra Lumber. Their vision was to "incite" excitement in the Hamilton arts community. We are also fortunate to have received a grant through the Hamilton Community Foundation, from the Alfred & Joan Robertshaw Memorial Fund. This fund is to provide support to performing arts or heritage organizations.

We look forward to presenting this event annually and appreciate your feedback and ideas. Email us at: info@hamiltonmusicfestival.ca.