Banff Centre’s Fall-Winter programming continues with works and performances by Bryce Dessner, Ocean Vuong, Niall McNeil, collectif9, Silkroad Ensemble, and more

Spanning literary cabarets, concerts, theatrical performances, and more, Banff Centre’s Fall-Winter full roster of programming features a vibrant mix of free and paid events from across artistic disciplines. Tickets to all events are available now.

BANFF, AB, OCTOBER 14, 2026 – As the Bow Valley welcomes sweater weather and golden larches to the mountainsides, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity also announces its full Fall-Winter season of programming, featuring over 20 performances from a wide range of emerging and established artists. 

In addition to the previously announced Banff Centre Presents lineup, the months of November 2026 to February 2027 will be filled with must-see names like The National’s Bryce Dessner and celebrated writer Ocean Vuong (Feb. 12), JUNO Award-nominated musicians Basia Bulat (Jan. 20) and Luca Fogale (Jan. 22), The Bad Plus bassist Reid Anderson (Jan. 15), theatre maker Niall McNeil (Jan. 16), Montreal-based string nonet collectif9 (Jan. 26), members of the Silk Road Ensemble, Pura Fé, Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, and Mazz Swift (Mar. 6), and more. 
 

Fall-Winter Highlights

Mâwacihitowinihk Nikamowak Concerts

Join us for one of two free concerts, showcasing new works by participants in the Mâwacihitowinihk Nikamowak: Indigenous Music Residency. Mâwacihitowinihk Nikamowak is the Plains Cree for "they sing at the gathering (place)," referring to Sacred Guardian Buffalo Mountain.

Faculty members Logan Staats, Jason Manitowabi, Jah’kota, and JUNO Award winner Aysanabee will host the concerts. 

• Mâwacihitowinihk Nikamowak Concerts
  November 27 & December 4 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  FREE

Slow Reactors: Reid Anderson Trio

Coming to Banff fresh off The Bad Plus’ farewell tour, founding member and bassist Reid Anderson begins a chapter with his new trio: Slow Reactors. Alongside Tina Priceman (violin), Gregg Belisle-Chi (guitar), and a long-time passion for electronic music, Slow Reactors uses analog synths and drum machines to explore the compositional and interactive possibilities of electronic music with live musicians.

Anderson comes to Banff Centre as a faculty member for the Banff Musicians in Residence program, ending in a concert featuring a performance by Anderson and participants.

• Slow Reactors: Reid Anderson Trio
  January 15 | 7:30 p.m. 
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $35

Niall McNeil’s Beauty and the Beast: My Life

Drawing inspiration from Disney’s animated film and Jean Cocteau’s 1946 adaptation of the classic fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast: My Life reimagines the familiar story through the extraordinary personal world of writer, director, and multidisciplinary artist Niall McNeil. Combining theatre and dance, alongside McNeil’s dialogue, lyrics, and paintings, he shares his experience living with Down syndrome. McNeil works alongside composer Veda Hille and an ensemble of disability arts mentors, artistic collaborators, and performers.

Winner of two Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards and co-creator of the shows Peter Panties and King Arthur’s Night with Marcus Youssef (now the subject of a documentary of the same name), McNeil is known for his bombastic humour and “poignant observations of the challenges of daily existence” (The Stir). Beauty and the Beast: My Life received its world premiere in 2025 at the Historic Theatre at Vancouver’s The Cultch.

“Talk about innovation. Talk about risk. Talk about reward. Talk about writer and director Niall McNeil’s Beauty and the Beast: My Life.” – Colin Thomas

• Niall McNeil’s Beauty and the Beast: My Life
  January 16 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre 
  $45

Luca Fogale

Canadian singer-songwriter Luca Fogale comes to Banff for an intimate evening of warm vocals, soulful songwriting, and reflective lyrics. Based in Burnaby, B.C., Fogale has performed across Canada, the U.S., Australia, and Europe, and has shared the stage with Dermot Kennedy and Serena Ryder. 

His fourth and more recent album, Challenger, continues the tradition of crafting thoughtful songwriting, written “mostly in quiet moments between being on the road.”

He will be a faculty member in the Banff Musicians in Residence program at Banff Centre, and the evening will also feature a selection of participants in the program.

• Luca Fogale
  January 20 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $35

Basia Bulat

Basia Bulat is one of Canada’s most accomplished songwriters, bridging gospel, soul, and classic folk music with powerful and deeply expressive vocals. A three-time Polaris Music Prize finalist and JUNO Award nominee, Bulat has built her international reputation as an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, playing electric guitar, piano, autoharp, ukulele, bass, and charango.

In 2026, she presents a solo tour that reimagines songs from her 2025 album Basia’s Palace with a series of stripped-down concerts and emotionally complex songwriting. The result is a powerful and intimate live experience, highlighting Bulat’s artistry and enduring place within the contemporary folk tradition. She will be faculty in the Banff Musicians in Residence program at Banff Centre, and the evening will also feature a selection of participants in the program.

• Basia Bulat
  January 22 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $35

collectif9: Rituæls

An award-winning nine-member ensemble from Montreal, collectif9 performs “with an infectious energy and vigour that grabs an audience’s attention” (The WholeNote). The spiritual experience of Rituæls brings together music from the Middle Ages to the modern era alongside an impassioned dance performance by Stacy Désilier. Alongside accordionist Matti Pulkki and using a series of tableaux, Rituæls creates a common thread of continuous sound, whether it be a drone, a chord, or a repetition of notes.

The performance takes the audience through emotional phases: the spiritual, the intimate, the fragile, the dismayed, the grandiose, and the humble, and recalls the human tradition of passing on knowledge and practices in culture and art.

What originally began as a concert in 2021 has become the subject of the 2024 album Analekta/Outhere Music and received an Opus Award in 2026, a Juno Award in 2025, and a nomination at the 2025 Québec Association for the Recording, Concert and Video Industries (ADISQ) Gala.

• collectif9: Rituæls 
  January 26 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $45

Night Sky with Exit Wounds

Night Sky with Exit Wounds is a multidisciplinary stage production by Grammy Award-winning composer Bryce Dessner (The National, Train Dreams) and world-renowned director Silvia Costa, based on Ocean Vuong’s multi-award-winning debut poetry collection of the same name for which he won the prestigious T.S. Eliot Prize in 2017. 

Vuong also earned a MacArthur Fellowship for his writing as an essayist, poet, and author of his debut novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. Night Sky with Exit Wounds explores Vuong’s experience as an American queer child of Vietnamese immigrants. His words will be set to music by Dessner and sung by Grammy Award-winning mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron.

• Night Sky with Exit Wounds 
  Jenny Belzberg Theatre
  February 12 | 7:30 p.m.
  $35 | $45

Haruka Fujii, Pura Fé, Maeve Gilchrist & Mazz Swift  

Members of the acclaimed Silkroad Ensemble come together for an exceptional concert during their time at Banff Centre as faculty of the Soundweavings program.

Each artist has a significant international performance career, bringing unique musical storytelling to the ensemble. Singer-songwriter and activist Pura Fé honours and celebrates her Indigenous heritage by blending traditional Native American sounds with contemporary Americana. Japanese multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii has gained acclaim as a prominent solo percussionist and marimbist, and Scottish harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist intertwines jazz and folk with her Celtic roots. Violinist and composer Mazz Swift, a violinist and composer, fuses classic African American music and electronica with mindfulness and improvisation.

Silkroad Ensemble performs throughout the world and has recorded eleven albums. Sing Me Home, winner of the 2016 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album, was developed and recorded alongside the documentary feature The Music of Strangers from Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville.

• Pura Fé, Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist & Mazz Swift 
  March 6 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $45

Hand To Earth Trio, Haruka Fujii, and Nguyễn Thanh Thủy

Hand to Earth developed during an Australia Art Orchestra residency in the remote highlands of Tasmania. The group creates an effortless rapport that spans continents and cultures and yet expresses a deeply human commonality. They will be joined by internationally acclaimed multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii and Nguyễn Thanh Thủy, a leading đàn tranh player/improviser in both traditional and experimental music.

• Hand To Earth Trio, Haruka Fujii and Nguyễn Thanh Thủy
  March 13 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  $35

With free and ticketed events throughout the fall and winter, Banff Centre’s campus will come alive with music, theatre, literature, and visual arts. Audiences can purchase tickets on the Events page or receive regular updates through the Banff Centre Events Newsletter. Find more upcoming event listings below:

• Decolonizing the Narrative: Conversation Series with Leelay Gilday
  November 16 | 7 p.m.
  Max Bell Auditorium
  FREE
   
• Reel Time Screening: The Christophers
  November 16 | 7 p.m.
  Lux Cinema
  $16
   
• Early Career Writers of Poetry Cabarets: Stanzas 1
  November 26, December 1 & 3 | 7 p.m.
  CLVB ’33 
  FREE
   
• Reel Time Screening: Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie
  December 7 | 7 p.m.
  Lux Cinema
  $16
   
• Deep Winter Writers Literary Cabarets: Chapters 1–3
  January 14, 19 & 21 | 7 p.m.
  CLVB ’33 
  FREE
   
• Open Studios – Banff Musicians in Residence 
  January 21 & 27 | 7 p.m.
  Music Huts & Music Building
  FREE
   
• Banff Musicians in Residence Participant Concert  
  January 28 | 7:30 p.m.
  Rolston Recital Hall
  FREE
   
• 2027 Barbara Spohr Memorial Award Artist Talk: Séamus Gallagher
  February 4 | 5 p.m.
  Jeanne and Peter Lougheed Bldg, 204 (also available online)
  FREE
   
• Soundweavings Participant Concerts
  March 18 & 20 | 7:30 p.m.
  Margaret Greenham Theatre
  FREE

For a full lineup of events, visit banffcentre.ca and contact the Banff Centre Box Office for tickets at 1.403.762.6301. You’ll also find our Banff Centre Presents programming, the home for live performances by local favourites and international hits in the Bow Valley. In addition to a multitude of concerts, theatre, and literary events, Banff Centre Presents will also feature performances by William Prince (Nov. 20), Laila Biali (Dec. 2), Taiwanese dance legend Hung Dance’s BIRDY (Nov. 28), Australian cabaret performer Meow Meow (Dec. 16), and theatre productions Rick Miller’s BOOM X (Dec. 12) and Peru’s Teatro La Plaza’s Hamlet (Jan. 29).

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See Banff Centre’s Media Room here.

For photos, information, or interview requests, please contact:
 

Carly Maga                             
Director, Communications                         
Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity             
tel: +1.403.763.6210                
cell: +1.403.431.3423                
carly_maga@banffcentre.ca  

About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity

Founded in 1933, Banff Centre is a post-secondary institution built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and leadership development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become a global organization leading in arts, culture, and creative decision-making across dozens of disciplines, from the fine arts to Indigenous Wise Practices. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to move everyone who attends our campus—artists, leaders, thinkers, and audiences—to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to build an innovative, inspiring future through education, performances, convenings, and public outreach. banffcentre.ca

Banff Centre
107 Tunnel Mountain Drive
Banff, Alberta
Canada
T1L 1H5
403.762.6100
www.banffcentre.ca

We recognize, with deep respect and gratitude, our home on the side of Sacred Buffalo Guardian Mountain. In the spirit of respect and truth, we honour and acknowledge the Banff area, known as “Minihrpa” (translated in Stoney Nakoda as “the waterfalls”) and the Treaty 7 territory and oral practices of the Îyârhe Nakoda (Stoney Nakoda) – comprised of the Bearspaw, Chiniki, and Goodstoney Nations – as well as the Tsuut’ina First Nation and the Blackfoot Confederacy comprised of the Siksika, Piikani, and Kainai. We acknowledge that this territory is home to the Shuswap Nations, Ktunaxa Nations, and Métis Nation of Alberta, Rockyview District 4. We acknowledge all Nations who live, work, and play here, help us steward this land, and honour and celebrate this place.