Intersection, Toronto’s annual festival of experimental music returns with three days of innovative and genre-fluid artistry running from August 29 to 31, 2025. This vibrant weekend showcases niche and boundary-pushing sounds at several unique and accessible venues in Toronto, creating an immersive experience for new audiences and artists alike.
2025 marks Intersection’s 14th year. Starting out as a standalone contemporary music marathon at what was then Yonge Dundas Square, the festival has since grown into an annual multi-day event known for pairing internationally renowned artists alongside local counterparts in a decidedly kaleidoscopic variety of styles. Its storied alumni include the likes of Shalabi Effect, Bang On A Can, John Oswald, Elliott Sharp, Sarah Hennies, Joan LaBarbara, Suzanne Ciani, Eli Keszler, Morton Subotnick, Nihilist Spasm Band, Mick Barr, Wolf Eyes and many more.
For Intersection 2025, the festival returns to its DIY roots by platforming some of the most engaging experimental music in the current Canadian scene onstage in the middle the country’s busiest traffic intersection, among other free and accessible performance spaces.
Intersection 2025 kicks off on August 29th, at Sonic Boom Records, Canada’s largest independent record shop. Starting at 6pm, Windsor-based, Palestinian-Canadian guitarist Bilal Nasser and London-based, Lebanese-Canadian electronic artist Alex Raja Ven will perform intimate sets for an audience of dedicated fans and curious shoppers. Both artists are experienced in crafting innovative performances for alternative venue spaces, with Nasser’s music being equally at home in the classical concert hall as it is at a skateboard park or dive bar, and Ven recently exhibiting Threshold Ecologies, a mixed-media sound installation during a residency at SÍM in Reykjavík, Iceland. These performances will serve as a preview for the following day’s marathon event at Sankofa Square, effectively setting the tone for the eclectic and boundary-pushing spirit of the festival.
Starting at 2pm on August 30th, Day 2 marks Intersection’s flagship all-day new music marathon at Sankofa Square. Founded in 2007 as the Toronto New Music Marathon, this unique happening at Yonge-Dundas Square has tirelessly shattered preconceptions about experimental music, taking music that would typically be found in small, underground venues, and mounting it for free at one of the most accessible and public locales in the city for anyone and everyone to engage with.
Along with previous day’s artists Bilal Nasser and Alex Raja Ven (now joined by the Heart Map Ambient Ensemble), the marathon’s lineup is rounded out by further genre-defying music mavericks. It will feature local classical/jazz/hardcore-fusion ensemble Arkkose; underground Toronto ambient mainstay Anthéne; the alchemic meditative trance states of composer Khôra (AKA Matthew Ramolo); Montréal tabla virtuoso Shawn Mativetsky’s highly acclaimed synthwave project Temporal Waves; and recently Toronto Jazz Fest featured fusion shredders Lavender Town.
Throughout the day, the square will feature installations by local artists Stephanie Orlando, as well as David and Sydney Dacks. Orlando’s project, “Sonic Bikes!” was previously featured at Nuit Blanche in Toronto and will allow passing audience members to interact and perform with instruments built from re-purposed scrap metal bike frames and parts. David and Sydney Dacks’ historical megamix, “A Radio Active Active Community,” presents a personal journey back to the heady days of Toronto’s campus radio in the early 1990s in the form of an improvised 45-60 minute audiovisual experience. Selections from David’s audio archives will also be broadcasted at the square between live stage performances.In what is becoming a tradition following the festival’s last few years, the final day (August 31st) offers a glimpse behind the curtain and several entry points into festival artists’ process through interactive workshops and performances.
The day will feature an early afternoon (3pm) panel discussion at 918 Bathurst Centre, exploring the context, conflicts, triumphs and legacy of the era explored in the Dacks’ installation. Co-presented by the Canada Black Music Archives, the panel will be moderated by CIUT radio veteran Judy Perry and also include Phil Vassell (CBMA) and DTS (The Masterplan Show).
Following the panel, there will be further presentations and discussions, as well as a reception with all the festival’s artists at the Canadian Music Centre from 7-9pm.
Intersection 2025 continues the festival’s legacy of experimental music intervention in the core of Toronto over the Labour Day Weekend, adding to an already innovative history of presenting new sounds to new audiences in the most engaging public format possible.