Kiva Stimac is rearranging boxes.
“I’m trying to organize all the merch so we can start printing more,” she says, heaving a cardboard cube onto the chesterfield.
I have arrived at the Suoni per il Popolo headquarters located up one flight of stairs from the legendary Casa del Popolo venue on St. Laurent Boulevard, just south of St. Joseph. The office is plastered on one wall with a spate of colourful hand-printed posters cataloguing two-and-a-half decades’ worth of events. A blackboard featuring the calendar for the forthcoming 25th edition of the storied Montreal music and arts festival covers the other wall, formidable lineups scrawled out in white chalk, uncompromising programmes of innovative music across 12 days.
The Watch that Ends the Night label showcase featuring Polaris Prize-longlisted Quinton Barnes on 19 June; Radwan Ghazi Moumneh with Lebanese post-rock powerhouse SANAM on the 21st; Lesbians on Ecstasy coming out of retirement that same evening, featuring HRT as the local opener; experimental electronic traveller Hiro Kone on the 27th; T. Gowdy supported by a handful of hometown heavyweights on the 28th; Wolf Eyes making their intrepid comeback; Kara-Lis Coverdale performing a solo organ set; the Jellicle Kiki Ball — the list of unmissable shows goes on.
And on.
“Because it’s the 25th anniversary, every single night is going to be sick,” boasts Stimac, Suoni’s artistic director, in-house screen printer, master chef, and resident caretaker. Stimac lives by the DIY ethic, micromanagement be damned.
“None of this was built with money, or investments, or business plans,” she says, gesturing to the living history wallpapering the space. “It’s punk rock.”
After a quarter century, this festival and its founder have seen ups and downs. But this year is no doubt cause for celebration, the silver anniversary of Montreal’s most risk-taking gathering, both during the festival and in the off-season. Nowhere else will patrons be regaled with a lineup of artists ranging from six to 80 years old, novices and unsung heroes alike, all playing the same stages. “I’m definitely looking for stuff that challenges people’s perception of what music can be, and how to use sound to connect,” Stimac explains.
When Suoni began, she didn’t imagine that the festival would last 25 years and grow to mean so much to Montreal’s arts community. “At 27 years old, I don’t think we thought in our heads that we had this goal of making anything or doing anything,” Stimac recalls. “We were just trying to live our lives as artists and put food on the table and be with our friends.”
But doing that year after year, decade after decade, Suoni has become entrenched into Montreal’s cultural fabric, supporting the Plateau and Mile-End-based music scenes and introducing renowned international artists to new audiences.
“People influence each other in scenes,” says Stimac. “Everybody hears differently and sees differently and thinks differently. But if there’s some collective understanding that we can come together by sharing our visions of the world through our creativity, I think that’s how we can communicate on alternate planes. The other way humans have to communicate outside of speech is our art. But art can be anything. I think cooking a dinner for your friends can be artistic.” (As a professional chef, Stimac ensures that none of Suoni’s performers play on an empty stomach.)
Stimac offers me a tour of Popolo Press, the studio where all of Suoni’s posters and t-shirts are screen-printed. Linoleum cuts and letter sets, stacks of paper and bottles of ink, paint brushes and glue, a printing press, photocopies, photographs, fridge magnets and books and record covers and hand-written notes — the assemblage of artistic tools and ephemera induces an almost vertiginous sense.
To be surrounded every day with art supplies and creative paraphernalia means that Stimac is literally immersed in a life of making something out of nothing. The office is a factory of near constant production, an organic assembly line. And all of it originates from an impetus for social justice.
“I believe in my heart that the personal is also political,” Stimac asserts. “If you’re singing about love as a queer person, that’s a political act. When I make art, I don’t necessarily think that I’m putting my politics into it. But everything I do is because of humanity’s shared struggle.”
The inherent value of music and art is that it allows for a field for experimentation in which new ideas and ways of doing things can germinate and grow. Art can mirror life, or it can suggest life to come.
“I think experimental arts that are trying to test boundaries or coming out of struggle — trying to use creativity as a means for connection in some ways that’s maybe different than the music industry side of it and the selling of things — is very important to nurture and give a platform for. That’s why I’m continuing to do it,” says Stimac. “I do feel the feedback from the community. People come to the shows, and they talk to me. I feel the response at the shows. Often, people leave saying, ‘that music changed my life.’ It can be a really transformative and connecting thing to get through the kind of times that we’re living in.”
Our times undeniably demand action. And Suoni per il Popolo offers no illusions about the struggle’s reality. Still, Stimac and her comrades have programmed a festival this year that aims to entertain as well as enlighten. “A big part of the groove that I look for is fun,” Stimac concedes. “I want to have fun. I don’t want it to be just in the brain. I want people to dance.”
The connection between mind, body, and soul is at the heart of Suoni’s ethos. I ask how someone who is her age when she started out might get to where she is now.
“All I did it with was a pencil, some ink, and the back of a wooden spoon,” Stimac says. “There are so many things you can do. Do them.”◼︎
The 25th anniversary of Suoni per il Popolo runs at various locations from 19 – 30 June 2025.
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