You register online for the Festival using our online entry form – starting this year, through the Music Festival Suite (MFS) system.

Our registration page includes sample worksheets you can use to assemble the information you need for your registration.

You can find a how-to guide on signing up for MFS here.

Registration deadlines are found on our online registration page.

To correct an error in your registration, please create a support ticket in MFS.

The Festival offers limited late registrations this year with a late fee surcharge. All the same, we strongly recommend registering on time.

Our Special Approvals and Deadlines page has the deadline to submit supplementary materials, such as scores or recordings for composition classes (or video submission classes in years where those are offered).

One way to reduce the chance of conflicts is to report the potential conflict to the Festival by means of a support ticket on MFS or an email.

The MFS platform has built-in schedule conflict checking, reducing the likelihood that a conflict will occur.

In the unlikely event of a conflict, the Festival will work to reschedule one of your performances as required.

You may register in any number of classes. You may even register in the same class more than once, as long as you are performing non-competitively.

Yes, with some restrictions:
– If you are registered in at least one class matching your grade, you may register in up to one class in a higher grade and still perform competitively in those classes.
– You may not perform competitively in lower-grade classes.
– You may enter any number of higher or lower-grade classes and perform non-competitively.

Disciplines with classes organised by age work differently:
– Entering a class for an older age group usually works like entering a class for a higher grade.
– You may not enter a class for a younger age group.

The MFS system does not currently have any field where you can indicate how you want to be adjudicated when you enter a class.

If you want to be adjudicated non-competitively, submit a support ticket on MFS or email the Festival. We’ll make a note of your preference.

The Festival now allows performers to play repertoire not found on Conservatory repertoire lists in most of our classes. Performers must still perform Conservatory repertoire to be eligible for Provincials.

Yes, as long as you meet each class’s requirements.

Yes. Each ensemble must have distinct membership overall – for instance, you couldn’t have two separate string quartets will all the same members – but some overlap is acceptable.

What is more, you could be a member of multiple ensembles in the same class! For instance, if you are in two separate piano duets that both happened to register in the same class, that would be acceptable.

Yes. Note that ensembles are subject to the same restrictions as solo performers.

A solo performer can pay registration fees online using whatever methods are made available by the Festival.

An ensemble can pay fees online as well. Ensembles linked to institutions such as schools are also permitted to pay via cheque.

If you cancel your registration in one or more classes before the registration deadline for each such class, you will be refunded the fees.

Afterward, registration fees are non-refundable except in exceptional circumstances.

Starting in the 2023 Festival year, admission is free for most of our classes. Admission is still required for Bands, Choirs, and Orchestras classes and for trophy playoff classes.

Admission fees can be found at the admission fee page.

Instead of having a specific rule regarding repeats and other score markings, the Festival has these general rules:
(1) Play an Own Choice selection as indicated in its score.
(2) Play a Conservatory selection following any directions for observing repeats or score markings as indicated in the corresponding Conservatory syllabus.

All participants in the Festival receive a full adjudication, with specifics depending on whether they are performing live or virtually, from the adjudicator, regardless of whether they are performing competitively or not and regardless of their standing in their class.

Although performing from memory is strongly encouraged in all disciplines, it is not a requirement of the Festival.

Adjudicators are instructed not to take memorisation into account save as a tie-breaker of last resort.

On the day you are scheduled to perform, when submitting scores to the adjudicator assistant, advise the assistant of the order in which you wish to perform your repertoire.

When performing virtually, simply prepare your video submission with pieces in the order you wish to perform them.

Scholarships are awarded based on the recommendations of the adjudicators. Subject to some minimum requirements set by the Festival, and to conditions set by scholarship donors, these recommendations are made at their discretion.

The Festival Rules & Regulations set out the minimum requirements for scholarships awarded by the Festival. Any discipline whose own requirements are more stringent than the minimum will include its specific requirements in its own section of the Syllabus.

Scholarship donors often specify conditions under which their scholarship is to be awarded. This is a normal and acceptable process. Such conditions may modify performers’ eligibility. For instance, if a scholarship is automatically awarded to the winner of a particular trophy, the adjudicator’s recommendation is not required to award that scholarship. The Festival respects the wishes of donors in these matters to the maximum extent possible.

The Festival requires that adjudicators prepare and furnish an extensive list, ranked in descending priority order, of performers they feel are deserving of a scholarship, once they conclude their session(s) with the Festival.

The Festival’s Scholarship Committee then reviews the adjudicators’ recommendations, the extent to which performers recommended by the adjudicator meet the minimum requirements, and the conditions set by donors, and awards scholarships to performers based on this review, until all available scholarships have been awarded.

Unfortunately, there is rarely, if ever, sufficient funds to award scholarships to everyone recommended by the adjudicators. While prioritizing awards based on the order of performers in the adjudicators’ recommendations, the Festival attempts to award scholarships as fairly as possible.

Unfortunately, no – when performing in a competitive class, you may not choose repertoire selections that you have performed in the Festival in previous years.