Sarah’s Weekend List, November 10-12

I will be joining Dan Laxer to co-host the CJAD 800 Trivia Show on Sunday, 9am to noon! 

Join a local Remembrance Day ceremony on Saturday; find the one closest to you here at the Legion’s website. The Quebec command of the Royal Canadian Legion will host their annual gathering downtown at Place du Canada, at 10:30 am. And you can always join us live at CJAD 800 from 10:45 am, with Andrew Carter’s We Remember broadcast. 

Centaur Theatre is hosting a reflective reading for Remembrance Day. Gifted actress Leni Parker will perform poetry and play excerpts, accompanied by musician Nick Carpenter. Readings will include Motherhouse, by David Fennario, a Centaur mainstay who passed away earlier this fall; the play is set in a Verdun wartime munitions factory operated by women. Free, Saturday at 2pm.

Micro ouvert autochtone is a free showcase of Indigenous artists and culture, set up throughout the public spaces at Place des arts. Curator (and Inuit throat singer) Nina Segalowitz has assembled a who’s who of artists, including Innu director Josephine Bacon, who will give a recital and talk Saturday at noon. Husband-and-wife musical duo Twin Flames perform their contemporary folk sound, Saturday at 3pm. There’s also an arts fair, workshops and short-film screenings. Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6pm. 

The Arsenal Contemporary Gallery in Griffintown hosts an immersive show that takes you inside the Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral. Consecrated nearly a thousand years ago, the impressive Medieval church was nearly lost during a brutal fire amid restoration in 2019. This show takes you into the history of the Cathedral, and its rebuilding process. Until December 30. 

Browse over 40 paintings, including works by Andy Warhol and Guido Molinari, in a free pop-up show in a beautiful setting. The mix of private and public paintings will be on display before hitting the auction block next month. Le Mount Stephen Hotel, 1440 Drummond, Friday and Saturday, 10am to 5pm. 

Actress Melora Hardin, of The Office and Monk fame, is a Montrealer! She has a home and studio in Old Montreal, and large, colourful collages are currently being exhibited at Galerie Le Royer, 42 St Paul St West. Listen to Melora speak with Andrew about her work here.  

Astronaut turned bestselling writer Chris Hadfield will be signing copies of his latest, The Defector, at Indigo - Place Montréal Trust, Sunday 2pm. Chris’s hero, Kaz, is on vacation and recovering from The Apollo Murders, but finds himself on the trail of a Soviet defector with murky motives. Listen to his interview with Andrew here.

At MTLàTABLE, over 125 Montreal restaurants have signed up to offer limited-time prix fixe menus, with three or four courses. The price points are $38, $53, $63 and $83. Feast on chicken and waffles at The Blind Pig in HoMa, parmesan pesto gnocchi at vegan hotspot LOV McGill or  seafood jambalaya at Restaurant Kamúy near Place-des-Arts. Or head to the restaurant list to locate your next meal by cuisine, neighbourhood and price point. Until November 19.  

Last call! Beautiful: The Carole King Story is a jukebox musical that chronicles Carole’s turn from student to songwriter to superstar, and her emotional and personal journey along the way. Tess Benger is charismatic and energizing as Carole. Until Sunday. 

Theatre Ouest End hosts a series of short play readings that centre around moral dilemmas. Reality Bites will include writing from company members Alice Abracen, Ann Lambert and Laura Mitchell. The audience will get to debate the choices made by the characters. Friday, 7:30pm at Cité des Hospitaliers, 251 Pine Ave. West. 

Friday’s music picks: “Comethru” singer Jeremy Zucker at the Beanfield, 7:30pm. Canadian indie darling Hannah Georgas lights up Petit Campus, 8pm. Granby’s signature punk rockers Vulgaires Machins party at MTelus 8pm. Quebec rap label 7ieme CIEL celebrates 20 years with luminaries like FouKi, Koriass, Alaclair Ensemble and more, at the Bell Centre, 8pm. 

And as part of the Festival Bach Montreal, cellist Alisa Weilerstein and the MSO re-invent Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello with imaginative set and lighting design. FRAGMENTS will be performed Friday, 7pm at Maison symphonique. 

Saturday’s music picks: French rapper Ninho, at Place Bell at 8pm. Genre-spanning singer-songwriter Teddy Swims at Beanfield, 8pm. Rapper 6LACK at MTelus, 8pm. Dubstep DJ Level Up brings the Seance Tour to Fairmount Theatre, 10pm. 

The Arab World Festival of Montreal will conclude Saturday. Learn about the multicultural heritage of flamenco music and dance through the life of Munir Bashir, with the help of his son, Omar and other artists. Roots of Flamenco is at Théâtre Maisonneuve, Saturday 8pm. 

Sunday’s music picks: It’s waitlist only for the remarkable open-participation singing group Choir! Choir! Choir! at Beanfield, 8pm. Death metal veteran bands Incantation + Suffocation co-headline with Skeletal Remains and Stabbing, at Le Studio TD, 7pm. Innovative cellist Ian Maksin brings his latest album, Amor Renatus, to Cinquième Salle, 7pm. Master of Persian music, singer Alireza Ghorbani performs at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, 8:30pm. 

Nuits d’Afrique continues its series of weekend mini-festivals this month. Les Cabarets Acoustique begins with acts starting at 9pm all weekend. Mamadou Koïta of Burkina-Faso and his band Balafola launch their new album on Friday. 

Food star and cultural lightning rod Alison Roman will be in conversation with Jonathan Chung, at Club Soda, Sunday 8pm. 

Canadian comic Charlie Demers (Juno nominee, Netflix’s Beat Bugs, WTF with Marc Maron) headlining at The Comedy Nest, with support from Raza Jafrii, Mariam Khan, Harrison Weinreb and more. Friday and Saturday, 8 and 10:30pm.  

Get cozy at Hurley’s Bar on Crescent with The World's Smallest Comedy Night. Friday, 8pm.

At Montreal Improv in St Henri, check out a variety of shows, including Vampire Stories, an improvised tale about bloodsucking rommates, Sunday 7:30pm. 

It is a showdown over at The Wiggle Room! The theme is Rock ‘n Roll versus the Blues… and advocating for each side is Sugar Vixen, Celesta O’Lee, Madrose and Roxy Torpedo, with hosting by owner-performer Frenchy Jones. And on Sunday, The Lucy Show conjures the funny with a lineup of female and queer comics and burlesque dancers, Sunday at 7:30pm. 

Get a head start on your holiday shopping at the Fine Arts and Crafts Holiday Market. Browse ceramics, fashion and jewelry, woodworking and Christmas cards and decorations. Enjoy the Craft Café and grab a drink at the rooftop bar when you’re done with your shopping. Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm, at the DDO Civic Centre. 

ONGOING EVENTS

Cavalia’s Illumi – Dazzling World of Lights in Laval has returned, with the option to walk or drive through 19 universes along a 3-kilometre path, and be dazzled by 25 million LED lights! Open until early January. 

A new museum has opened in the heart of downtown: Centre des Mémoires Montréalaises promises to capture the city’s history and citizens. Check out the vintage neon signs at the entrance, and look for the colourful balls that once decorated Ste-Catherine in the Gay Village. There are two exhibition up now: a lookback at the 90 years of Le Chaînon, the women’s shelter and resource centre, and Détours, which focuses on hidden corners of the city. Located at 1201 St Laurent. 

The Infinite virtual reality experience returns to Montreal at a different location, with new, immersive footage shot from the International Space Station. Over the course of an hour, the exhibit puts you shoulder-to-shoulder with astronauts like David Saint-Jacques, taking you through their day orbiting the Earth. A jaw-dropping V-R treat! At 2 de la Commune Street West in the Old Port. Until November 12. 

Place des Arts opened 60 years ago this year! The sprawling complex looks back on its long history with a new exhibition, An Artistic Journey, with images from major performances and first-hand stories. At the Espace Culture Georges-Émile-Lapalme. 

The McCord Stewart Museum’s excellent and informative Indigenous Voices of Today: Knowledge, Trauma, Resilience. The show profiles the 11 nations living within the borders of Quebec, with testimonies and carefully curated objects.

The very popular Bébé symphonique show has just returned to the Planetarium! This multisensory show is designed for kiddos up to 18 months of age, with adapted sound levels and swirling images of the stars. The 33-minute show is paired with the educational short film, Stardust. Though this weekend is booked,  start making your plans to see this popular show before it ends December 17.