Windwood Festival Brings Classical Music to Airdrie
Story by Ava Touch, AirdrieLife Magazine
This year’s Windwood Music Festival once again brings some of the best classical and contemporary chamber music to Airdrie, Red Deer and Banff from August 3 to 17, 2025.
This year’s theme, “wanting to start again,” reflects the rebranding Festival founders Tong Wang and Maitreyi Muralidharan did for their own duo, DoSi (formerly Duo Perdendosi). According to their Instagram, “there’s something about fresh starts that feel right this year and we’ve embraced that spirit fully.”
“Starting again” could also reflect the busting of stigmas about this type of music for people discovering it for the first time, or who have enjoyed it their entire lives.
Wang and Muralidharan established Windwood to turn a spotlight on classical and chamber music by bringing it to audiences in Airdrie and rural Alberta as a way to make the invitation easier for those who don’t reside in a larger city like Calgary, where such performances may be easier to come by.
The Windwood Music Festival features a dynamic collective of performers, educators and leaders who actively foster connection through music, including immigrant composers and LGBTQ2S+ artists with works that focus on environmental themes.
This year’s resident artists include violinists Amir Kadamani González and Lana Auerbach, violist Nicholas Lindell, cellist Alexander Wu, and pianist Rosa Burke, each bringing distinction from top institutions and international stages. Wang and Muralidharan themselves lead a genre-defying duo of piano and violin.
The festival aims to offer performances that spotlight immigrant and minority voices through human-centred performance.
“We have to review their audition videos and their bios … [and] also they submit a project proposal for why they want to come to Airdrie and to do a very specific project with the Airdrie community,” says Wang. “That really shows their personality and that they’re highly qualified, conservatory-trained musicians.
“They’re going to love the experience. They’re going to love the Airdrie community, and we’re really looking forward to working with some of them on their projects.”
Pianist Annie Kwok will direct the festival’s creative residency with interactive programming, while community liaisons David Dietz and Claire Hebeisen lead outreach efforts. Together, they push for diversity, storytelling and access to classical music through active performance, innovation and community engagement.
But it’s the volunteers who really make Windwood tick.
“We want our residents to feel like they come out of this with something that they can use and replicate in their own communities … and we want more volunteers this year,” says Muralidharan.
“Volunteers make such a big difference, especially for the outdoor festival days. The volunteers are the people who help us connect with the community, because they are the Airdrie community. We want to bring high-calibre classical music to Airdrie, and we want people to know that it’s great to like classical music.”
The co-directors approach the festival from the perspective of themselves being musicians and know that classic music can be a tough sell for some people in the 2020s, says Wang.
“Both Maitreyi and I are trained classically; that’s our entire life’s work and career … we both started when we were four,” she says, adding the two are currently working on their doctorates.
“Along the way, we’ve realized that there’s a lot of preconceptions and prejudices about the elitism in classical music, that it is very Western-centric, which a lot of these issues are true. And so, a lot of what we do as minority, immigrant background artists is to see what kinds of needs we can fill in terms of representing the classical music world more diversely.”
Muralidharan says each year the Windwood Music Festival feels more like home to them. They return to Airdrie not just to perform, but to reunite with a growing family of artists and community members who bring warmth, heart and inspiration to everything they do.
Also, coming from a small town in North Carolina, Muralidharan recognizes the unique spirit in Airdrie, one that blends big-city ambition with small-town heart, no matter how challenging things get.
“I would choose this place and these people again and again, because making music here is just so joyful, so full of meaning and always full of surprises,” Muralidharan says.
For Wang, the Windwood Music Festival began as a true homecoming. The idea began when she realized her mother’s Airdrie Airbnb would be the perfect space to host a group of musicians and friends. Her mother quickly became an integral part of the festival, welcoming artists with meals and care, turning the experience into something that felt more like a family gathering than just a performance series.
While Windwood may not follow a traditional festival path, Wang sees it as a deeply meaningful endeavour that blends personal connection with artistic integrity. As the festival grows, she and her co-director continue to lead by example, showing that it’s possible to remain grounded, joyful and community focused while creating ambitious and professional artistic work.
CONCERTS IN AIRDRIE – for complete details, go to windwoodfestival.com.
Aug. 6: Jenson Park – Airdrie Farmers Market open rehearsal
Aug. 8: Bethany Airdrie – “It Takes Two: A duo concert for starting again”
Aug. 15: Bert Church Theatre – “Opening Concert: Wanting to Start Again”
Aug. 16: Nose Creek Amphitheatre – “Wanting to Start Again: A Community Celebration”