Founded by transplanted Canadians Anne McKinnon and Roman Rappak, gaming platform Ristband offers a new revenue stream option for the music industry, in addition to simply being a cool way for artists to engage with fans by performing virtual concerts and offering digital assets, such as art, merch and unreleased tracks.

If you search Sound Royalties, it pops up with this tagline: Don’t Sell Your Music Royalties & Copyrights. That goes a long way — in a short way — to explain what the Florida-based finance firm, founded in 2014, offers artists, songwriters, producers and other music creatives. If you earn more than $5000 (USD) a year from music royalties, Sound Royalties offers advances of $3000 to more than $10 million.

“My job is all about them, not about me,” says Toronto’s Dan Kanter, the 42-year-old musical director, who got his major break with Justin Bieber, with whom he worked for eight years. You might have seen him accompanying the pop singer on guitar with his shoulder-length hair, trademark hat and big smile. He went on be hired as musical director for such talent as Alessia Cara, Shawn Mendes, Ariana Grande and Julia Michaels.

Edmonton’s pop band FKB was declared the 2023 Jim Beam National Talent Search winner during Canadian Music Week in Toronto, the bourbon brand has long been trying to help young talent get from A to B with regional competitions across the country and exposure to industry professionals and new audiences.

Co-founded by Vivian Barclay, managing director, Warner Chappell Music Canada; Craig Mannix, vice-president, Black music, Universal Music Canada; and Miro Oballa, partner, Taylor Oballa Murray Leyland LLP, Advance is helmed by executive director Keziah Myers, who oversees the implementation of its education and networking programs, ongoing advocacy, as well as the online resources and job board. The three founders sit on the board.

Montreal’s John Sicard once wished he had pursed a music career, but instead the Bachelor of Computer Science graduate joined a rising IT company in 1988 called Fastman Inc. in Ottawa, remaining there for five years before starting as a software engineer with Enterprise Planning Systems,

Preston Pablo has just released his new single, “Ay Ay Ay,” and was announced as one of the performers on the Juno Awards broadcast, March 13, in Edmonton, on which he will join Banx & Ranx and labelmate Rêve

By Karen Bliss The press release issued by Troy Carter and Suzy Ryoo’s music and technology company was simply captioned: Venice Music Names Dani Oliva as New Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs. It’s not until the bottom “about Dani Oliva” paragraph that it...

Preston Pablo has just released his new single, “Ay Ay Ay,” and was announced as one of the performers on the Juno Awards broadcast, March 13, in Edmonton, on which he will join Banx & Ranx and labelmate Rêve