In a city celebrated for its vibrant arts scene, Wavelength Music Arts Projects stands out as a beacon of creativity and community. Founded over 20 years ago by Jonathan Bunce, known to many as Jonny Dovercourt, Wavelength has become synonymous with innovation in Toronto’s music landscape. As the Artistic/Executive Director, Jonny continues to champion emerging artists and foster connections across diverse communities. In this exclusive interview, Jonny shares insights into Wavelength’s mission, upcoming events, and the unique magic that makes their concerts an unforgettable experience.
Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.
We are a non-profit arts organization that presents concerts and festivals and curates conversations around the intersection of music and urbanism. We’ve been around for over 20 years and our mandate has not changed much since then: we aim to build a sense of community in the local music scene in Toronto, to champion emerging artists and build bridges between diverse communities, and to animate public space and non-traditional venues. At Wavelength shows, you might hear artists playing in genres like indie, post-punk, shoegaze, art-pop, ambient, electronic, experimental, hip-hop, jazz, world, and beyond.
What problem does it aim to solve?
25 years ago when we started it, there were many great bands and artists that were getting overlooked by the recording industry in particular, and we wanted to start something to build the sense of excitement and buzz that seemed to be missing. We started out by curating a weekly concert series (now monthly) with the express aim of putting artists from different genres or subgenres on the same bill, that might otherwise not have played together, to foster a sense of cross-pollination and collaboration.
When did you start/join it?
We also cultivated a friendly, unpretentious atmosphere that encouraged people to come back every week with open minds and ears. We brought in original projection art, poetry, film and other forms of expression to encourage a creative atmosphere. And we went further in terms of spotlighting the artists we were excited about, by interviewing them in a monthly zine we published, which in the days before social media, became our main promotional vehicle – and something of a community paper for the local music scene. Since then we’ve moved with the times as the Internet evolved and the printed zine became a thing of the past, but the spirit of the zine lives on our website, which includes show listings and band interviews going back to the start of our series in the year 2000.
What made you want to get involved?
Introducing new music to people of all ages and backgrounds who are excited about discovering new music and new artists, making friends, and who think Toronto is awesome and underrated — in spite of the high cost of living, gnarly traffic, slow transit, inadequate bike lanes, etc etc.
How can our readers help?
Show up to the shows!
Where can we follow you?
PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?
Uma Nota Culture is another community-minded non-profit organization that I think is very like-minded with Wavelength. Their background is more in Latin, Brazilian, reggae and electronic scenes, but we present some similar artists and have collaborated on some cool events. They produce fantastic festivals like Mixto — which took place last month as part of the same SummerSeries in Trillium Park as our upcoming Wavelength Summer Thing — and the Geary Art Crawl coming up in September. Check them out at umanota.ca
