Music Niagara will open for its 20th season this July, with more musical programming ever.

All in all there will be 39 performances spread over five weeks as the organization celebrates two decades of musical performances in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

Shows will include range of artists and ensembles in various musical styles including choral, brass band, bluegrass and jazz.

An opening gala will take place July 7 at the NOTL Community Centre to kick off week one, starting with reception at 6:30 p.m. and a performance concert by the Hannaford Street Silver Band at 7:30 p.m.

On July 8, there will be a series of free concerts at Simcoe Park including a show called Where Have All the Folksongs Gone? The show will feature familiar folksongs from the 60s. 

Later the same day, Music Niagara willl launch a series called Great Romantics, to feature musical works spanning the late 18th to early 20th centuries. The first performer, international award-winnning Vietnamese-Canadian pianist Dang Thai Son, will start at 3 p.m. and play pieces by Schubert, Chopin, Paderewski, and Liszt.

On July 9, British-Canadian baritone Alexander Dobson will present an interpretation of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at United Mennonite Church, assisted up-and-coming Canadian artists. The show, based on the legends of Don Juan, contains elements of comedy, melodrama, and touches of the supernatural. 

On Tuesday, Music Niagara will present Three Men in a Boat with Michael Bawtree at the Court House Market Room.

Written by Jerome K. Jerome and first published in 1889, the novel has been called “the funniest book ever written.”

Bawtree, a Canadian actor and director, will bring all its comical antics to life as he leads the audience on a virtual boating expedition along the Thames, with three fictional men and Montmorency, the author’s dog. The show starts at 7:30 p.m.

July 11 will see the second presentation in the Great Romantics series, once again in the Court House Market Room at 7:30 p.m. The show will feature Ukrainian-American pianist Mykola Suk, who has performed at venues around the world, from the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory to Carnegie Hall in New York. He will play interpretations of Mozart, Beethoven and Liszt.

On Friday the 13th, Lonesome Ace Stringband will wrap up the first week of the season with an evening of bluegrass music at the Royal Canadian Legion. Band members Chris Coole (banjo), John Showman (fiddle) and Max Heineman (bass) will play Appalachian music.