The Canadian Music Centre (CMC) has announced the inaugural 7X Picanto Festival, which will run Feb. 4-11, 2022, and feature a new concert performance (hosted by versatile artist Sarah Albu) to be released each day. Performances for the Festival were chosen via submissions received from across Canada, representing all genres of music supported by Picanto.ca.
The lineup is:
| Release Date | Artist and Video |
| Feb. 4: | Patrick Giguère, émettre un son, vérifier sa propre existence. Sonic exploration from Québec. |
| Feb. 5: | Curtis Andrews, with Trichy Sankaran, The Offering of Curtis Andrews. Inter-cultural music from British Columbia. |
| Feb. 6: | NUMUS ensemble. Improvised music. Emerging artist from Ontario. |
| Feb. 7: | SHHH!! Ensemble with the Ottawa New Music Creators, In Sea. Improvised music from Ontario. |
| Feb. 8: | Nick Veltmeyer and Aureas Voces Indie Early Music, Jimmy and Rosalia, a Folk Opera. Opera/vocal from Nova Scotia. |
| Feb. 9: | Ensemble Paramirabo, Si le temps […], l’espace…, Chamber Music from Québec. |
| Feb. 10: | Richard Gillis and Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, Voices – A Musical Heritage. Jazz/Indigenous music from Manitoba. |
| Feb. 11: | All videos available |
Concerts will be available from 12:00 noon ET on the release day until 11:00 a.m. ET the following day. In addition to the concerts, Montréal composer and performer Maxime Daigneault will be conversing with the concert artists and composers. All the performances will be available on Feb. 11, 2022. The CMC acknowledges the generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts, Digital Strategy Fund.
Owned and operated by the CMC, Picanto.ca is a new Canadian digital platform devoted to a wide range of creative Canadian music, intended to reach beyond commercial sounds that are already available everywhere. Among the genres represented by Picanto.ca are jazz, chamber, electro-acoustic, Indigenous, opera, musique actuelle, inter-cultural, orchestral, experimental, improvised, sound art, and more. The platform was created by and for Canadian music lovers, and celebrates and promotes Canadian music creators.