Honens is known for it’s international competition that takes place every three years in Calgary but, every year, it hosts a festival bringing piano music to the people in a non competitive environment. “We believe that the power of music is transformative. It’s healing, and it can bring people together in ways that very few other things can,” said Amanda Smith Honens president and CEO. “We want music to be not just saved for special occasions but to be experienced in everyday life, woven into the fabric of people’s daily life so the Honan Festival is an opportunity to bring the joy of piano to the city of Calgary every year.” Smith says this year’s festival is made up of five pianists, many of them past winners of the competition, and the event is curated by former laureate Winston Choi. “Winston embodies our philosophy of the complete artist,” she said. “Not only is he a brilliant pianist but he is a creative thinker and a collaborator and he’s got his own artistic vision and we’re thrilled to have him curating the festival this year and what that means is he’s thought about the artists that would help bring his artistic vision to life.” Carter Johnson is one of those pianists. He’s a silver medal winner from the 2025 Honens Competition. The 29-year-old started playing piano when he was just four years old and is excited to be back in Calgary. “This is my first time playing at the festival, but it totally seems like a celebration of different styles of music, different performers, different types of concert settings,” he said. “It’s really a feast with a ton of variety and I can’t wait to see how it turns out.” He says what he’s looking forward to the most is interactions on stage with other artists. “On several of the concerts I’m playing, it’s with other people and we’re taking turns at the piano,” he said. “Sometimes we’re playing duets and actually in one of the concerts, two of the others are going to be playing a duo, one on the piano and one on the harpsichord.” Elisabeth Pion took home the gold medal at the 2025 competition and the Quebec native is happy to be part of the festival. “It’s a continuation, it’s just now the stakes of competing are off, which is so nice because I’m not a competition person, I love competition as a way to grow in yourself but I’m really glad that period in my life is over and that I can just focus on the craft .” Pion is happy to play for the love of music where no one is judging the playing, but simply enjoying it. “I think music is a kind of common factor for a lot of people just to have a relationship with themselves,” she said. “Have a moment when they’re not thinking about all the stuff that’s going on in their life and I think that’s quite a healing space and joyful space to be.” Smith says many of the concerts will be at the festival’s home venue, the National Music Centre. But she adds that there will be a variety of free public concerts as well. “We’ve been just blessed to have excited artists wanting to meet with new audiences,” she said. “They want to connect with their audiences and Calgary is an engaged audience, we have a cultural city that people don’t even understand, it’s deep underneath and it’s been here for so, so many years so I think there’s an excitement around coming to Calgary and experiencing what our audiences are like.” The festival kicked off Sept. 10 and runs through to the 13. Learn more about the festival here: https://honens.com/2026-festival/
