An Ontario native drawn to French culture, writer/journalist Marianne Ackerman moved to Montreal in 1981, where she undertook a career as a freelance journalist, eventually becoming theatre critic for The Gazette in 1984. Not content to observe from the sidelines, in 1988 she left The Gazette to co-found Theatre 1774, one of Quebec’s first theatre companies involving both English- and French-speaking artists. In that time, she wrote a dozen plays, twice collaborating with director Robert Lepage. In the nineties, she moved away from the theatre scene and published her debut novel in 2000. Jump was a rollicking roman-à-clé about the Montreal theatre scene in the eighties. Ackerman’s more experimental second novel, Matters of Hart, followed in 2005, but by then she was on the move again. Her latest venture is perhaps her most exciting to date: Rover Arts is a bilingual online culture review that has quickly become an essential voice in Montreal arts criticism. (DN)

Photo Credit: Andreas Sundgren, www.andreassundgren.com

Blending elements of post-hardcore sludge, white-noise peaks, and no-wave skittishness into one loud hammer attack of riffage, Montreal’s AIDS Wolf are among one of the heaviest and most notorious underground rock bands to break off the Main in the past decade.   Though the band has undergone more personnel changes than most bands could withstand, the current trio of Chloe Lum, Yannick Desranleau, and Alex Moskos are holding tight.  AIDS Wolf was known for their infamous live show long before they began releasing records on American labels such as Lovepump United and the legendary noise-rock imprint Skingraft.  While Moskos has divided his time between AIDS Wolf, spazzy space-rock jammers The Unireverse and his solo project Drainolith, Lum and Desranleau have perhaps left a wider imprint on Montreal’s indie community through their poster and album art as Seripop.  Their unique designs have graced the concerts and records of countless bands and festivals, been pasted onto walls and floors of art galleries as large-scale 3D installations, and been featured in books such as as Steven Heller’s New Vintage Type and John Foster’s New Masters of Poster Design.  In 2007 Seripop was even the recipient of a Juno Award for CD/DVD Artwork Design of the Year. (DN)

Of all the bands that shaped the Montreal rock zeitgeist of the “noughties,” Arcade Fire was the most celebrated. Formed in 2003 around the songwriting core of Texan-born transplant Win Butler and Haitian-Montrealer Régine Chassagne, Arcade Fire was rounded off by ex-Ontarians Richard Parry and Tim Kingsbury of the New International Standard, as well as Win’s brother William Butler. Working with various drummers, this lineup recorded and self-released an eponymous EP the same year. Based on the strengths of their live show, they garnered a deal with major American indie label Merge for their first full-length album. Released in 2004, Funeral became one of the biggest albums of the decade, catapulting the band from local cabaret act to international festival headliner. After touring the world several times, Arcade Fire bought an old church in the Quebec town of Farnham to record follow up, Neon Bible. Released in 2007, the album debuted at #1 in Canada and Ireland, and #2 in the U.S. and U.K. (DN)

Photo Credit: Gabriel Jones

These days she’s considered one of Montreal’s most successful jazz-and-blues vocalists, but back in the nineties, Susie Arioli was singing in the backrooms of the city’s many jazz clubs, trying to catch a break. That break came when Arioli met guitar player Jordan Officer. Together they formed The Susie Arioli Band, and in 1998, they were invited by the Montreal International Jazz Festival to open for Ray Charles. The performance was considered by many in attendance one of the brightest moments in the history of the festival, and it set The Susie Arioli Band on the way to greater opportunities. In 2000, the band released its debut album, It’s Wonderful. Arioli’s performance at that year’s Montreal Jazz Festival was a highly anticipated and sold-out event, evidence of Quebec’s growing love affair with her sultry vocal style. Now five albums in, Susie Arioli’s works have been both big sellers and critical favourites, garnering three Juno nominations and a devoted fanbase. (DN)

To rock musicians along Boulevard St. Laurent, MELISSA AUF dER MAUR is a lifelong Montrealer - daughter of boulevardier-journalist-politician Nick Auf Der Mar and translator Linda Gaboriau -  who got to live the rock n’ roll dream. In her early-twenties, the Concordia photography major befriended alt-rock giants Smashing Pumpkins, and soon after was asked to join Hole – featuring the infamous Courtney Love – as a replacement bassist at the peak of the band’s popularity. During her five-year contract, she recorded the 1999 follow-up album Celebrity Skin and toured arenas all over the world. In 2000, after joining the Smashing Pumpkins on tour, Auf Der Mar returned to Montreal, where she fronted the Black Sabbath cover-band Hand of Doom in 2002, and in 2004 released her first solo album, Auf Der Mar. Since then, she has returned to her first love, visual arts. In 2009, she conceived and directed the multi-media film, Out of Our Minds, which played to critical acclaim at Sundance and has gone on to earn an installation at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. (DN)

Montreal visual artist Ingrid Bachmann uses both outdated and advanced technology in her work. Symphony for 54 Shoes, which was exhibited in Quebec City (2008) and Regina (2006), incorporated tap shoes and computer technology, while Memo, which was seen in both Montreal and Belgium in 2007, used Post-It notes and a pulley system. Using an endlessly innovative variety of textiles, she creates visually rich, immersive, and interactive environments. She has had solo and group exhibitions in Canada, the USA, Belgium, Peru, and England. Also a writer, Bachmann has been published in numerous anthologies, catalogues, and journals such as Fiberarts and Cube Magazine. Born in Southern Ontario, she has made Montreal her home since 1993 (with the exception of a two-year visiting artist position at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995). She chose Montreal for its French culture, public spaces, affordability, and great arts community. (PF)

Memo, installation view © Ingrid Bachmann

Anita Rau Badami launched her literary career while living in Calgary, when her graduate thesis, the novel Tamarind Men, was famously salvaged from the slush-pile and published to worldwide acclaim in 1996.  She may have moved to Canada in 1991, but by then her passion for writing was already well established in India, where she had freelanced for the major newspapers and published children’s literature. Badami’s major works explore the plight of Indian emigrants to the West.  In 2001, she published her second novel, The Hero’s Walk, to widespread international acclaim and sales, garnering the Regional Commonwealth Writers Prize and Italy's Premio Berto, alongside being named the Washington Post’s Best Book of 2001.  That year, Badami was also awarded the Marion Engel Award for a female writer in mid-career.  She moved to Montreal in the “mid-noughties.”  Since then, she has published her third novel, 2006’s Can You Hear the Nightbird Call? (DN)

Photo Credit: Richard-Max Tremblay

Gioconda Barbuto proves that success in dance can be sustained even into one’s fifties. Born in Toronto, she began her training in the 1960s and still works regularly as both a choreographer and performer. She made her name as a soloist with Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal from 1980–96. While there, she performed with dozens of choreographers, including James Kudelka and Ginette Laurin. Before that, she danced with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet and the Minnesota Dance Theater. Barbuto was recognized for her choreography in 1996 with the Clifford E. Lee Award. Two years later, she was among a group of dancers, all over the age of 40, invited to join Nederlands Dans Theater III. Gioconda spent eight years with NDT III and is featured in two of Jiri Kylian’s award-winning films, Birth-Day and Car Men. Barbuto has continued to choreograph and dance for independent projects, including the 2008 projects, LifeLines, and Margie Gillis’s M.Body.7. (PF)

Having studied theatre at John Abbott College and Concordia University, Tyrone Benskin started working right out of school in the Montreal theatre community, including The Centaur, the Saidye Bronfman and Black Theatre Workshop. In 2005 he took on the role of artistic director of BTW, where he premiered productions of Le Code Noir by George Boyd and Swan Song of Maria by Carol Cece Anderson. From the title role in the Phantom of the Opera to the 71-year-old former slave Nelson Johns in the award-winning Wade in the Water, Benskin has acted in over 150 film and television projects and well over 40 stage productions, performing on stages across Canada, including the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and the National Arts Centre. He is recognized across the country as Mike Hayes in the Canadian soap opera Riverdale and Karl Lubinshy in the ground-breaking sci-fi series Charlie Jade. He is also featured in the mega-hit 300 and Oscar nominated I’m not There, playing guitar with the legendary Richie Havens. Benskin is also an accomplished musician and published songwriter. (PF)

Born in Chicago and a resident of Montreal since 2004, artist Mathew Biederman works with electromagnetic impulses to create phantasms of bright colour that often shift and shape before the viewer’s eyes. A director of Artists’ Television Access from 1995, in 1999 he jump-started his own artistic career by winning the Bay Area Artist Awards, and followed it up the next year with the first prize at Slovenia’s Break21 Festival. Since then, he has undertaken artistic residencies in Scotland, New York, and England, and mounted exhibits in Peru, New Zealand, the US, and at Montreal’s own Oboro Gallery. Biederman’s multimedia work also takes him into the realm of performance, many of which have been featured at international digital-arts festivals such as Austria’s Ars Electronica, England’s Futuresonic, the Nuit Blanche in Paris, and Montreal’s MUTEK. With so many accolades already under his belt, is it possible that Biederman came to Montreal to complete an MFA at Concordia? That is precisely what he just finished in 2009. (DN)

Iterating Color Field, Sorted and Measured Three Times, 2009, installation