Dubbed “Mr. Montreal” by CBC Arts, Richard “Bugs” Burnett is an arts and culture journalist and columnist. He is also a pop culture pundit on radio and television. His pioneering column Three Dollar Bill is the only syndicated LGBTQ column in Canadian publishing history, and is now conserved in The ArQuives, the largest independent LGBTQ archive in the world, and he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Chambre de Commerce LGBT du Québec at their 2019 Prix Phénicia Gala. Bugs has interviewed everybody from Cher to Justin Trudeau, got the last-ever sit-down interview with the late James Brown, and knows his hometown like a drag queen knows a cosmetics counter. Tourisme Montréal says, “As Michael Musto is to New York City, Richard Burnett is to Montreal.”
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Must-See Montreal Events in November 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for November 2017: MUSIC In Montreal this month, everything begins and ends with Leonard Cohen, the global icon who adored his hometown of Montreal. The many local celebrations of Cohen’s life begin with the blockbuster concert Tower of Song: A Memorial Tribute to Leonard Cohen on November 6, […]

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Must-See Montreal Events in October 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for October 2017: MUSIC Rock icon Roger Waters is back in town. Following his Montreal appearance on the red-carpet at the world premiere of the Opéra de Montréal’s Spring 2017 adaptation of Pink Floyd’s iconic album The Wall, called Another Brick In The Wall – The Opera, […]

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Must-See Montreal Events in September 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for September 2017: CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA In his 12th year at the helm of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Maestro Kent Nagano launches the 2017-2018 season with Mahler’s sweeping Symphony of a Thousand.  With more than 350 people on stage – including the OSM Chorus, mezzo-sopranos […]

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Must-See Montreal Events in July – August 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for July and August 2017: CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA This summer the OSM will continue Montreal’s 375th anniversary party when it joins forces with the Orchestre Métropolitain and the McGill Symphony Orchestra to present the free outdoor concert Montréal Symphonique on August 19. Presented at the foot of […]

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Must-See Montreal Events in June 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for June 2017: CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA One of the finest operatic singers of his generation, tenor John Mac Master co-stars in the McGill Chamber Orchestra’s much-anticipated June 6 production of Carmina Burana, a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936, based on 24 poems from the medieval collection Carmina Burana. Mac Master […]

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Must-See Montreal Events in May 2017

Here are my choice Montreal arts and culture highlights for May 2017: CLASSICAL MUSIC & OPERA The prolific Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal presents many must-see shows at the Maison Symphonique: The OSM’s Grammy-winning music director, Maestro Kent Nagano, will conduct the orchestra in Bernstein: From West Side Story to A Quiet Place (Leonard Bernstein was one of Nagano’s personal […]

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Must-see Montreal events in March 2017

Here are some Montreal arts and culture highlights for March 2017: CLASSICAL MUSIC AND OPERA Hands-down the most buzzed-about Montreal production of the year, the hotly-anticipated world-premiere of the Another Brick In The Wall – The Opera, commissioned by the Opéra de Montréal and based on Roger Waters’ legendary work The Wall, opens at Salle Wilfred-Pelletier at Place […]

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Must-see Montreal events in February 2017

Here are some Montreal arts and culture highlights for February 2017: MUSEUMS The blockbuster exhibition Chagall: Colour and Music at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts features some 500 works and documents—paintings, collages, watercolours, sculptures, stained glass windows and ceramics—which show how the aesthetic and artistic world of famed Russian-French artist Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is imbued with […]

Dance featured Fine Arts Music Theatre

Must-see Montreal events in January 2017

Here are some Montreal arts and culture highlights for January 2017: The year kicks off with the Broadway touring production of the Tony-winning musical Kinky Boots which headlines Salle Wilfred-Pelletier from Jan. 3 to 8. After winning Best Original Score at the 2013 Tony Awards, Cyndi Lauper told me, “I didn’t stop to think I was the first woman to win that award […]