Polaris Festival & Harbourfront Centre Present Julianna Riolino
About the event
The 2026 Polaris Festival is a month-long celebration of Canadian music as art, bringing together concerts, salons, listening sessions, conversations, artist development initiatives and the Polaris Concert & Award Ceremony at Massey Hall. Through the Festival, Polaris creates space for audiences to listen differently, gather around important Canadian albums and explore how music shapes culture, identity, memory and belonging.
These free waterfront concerts bring Polaris-recognized artists into public space, creating opportunities for audiences to encounter Canadian music with attention, care and curiosity. Presented in collaboration with Harbourfront Centre and The Waterfront BIA, the series reflects a shared commitment to accessible cultural experiences, artist discovery and live music in the places where people already gather.
Julianna Riolino considers her own growth on her sophomore record, Echo In The Dust. By Riolino’s own admission, Echo In The Dust is different from her debut, All Blue. On these songs, the Southern Ontario musician is soft as she is tough; seeing the benefit of laying down armour and splitting her heart open so that we may get a glimpse of our own.
The songs on Echo In The Dust consider relationships of all sorts as the foundation for her awakening into a renewed creative self and person in this world, working through loss, grief, habits, and decisions she once made, seeking clarity in the past before leaving it to move forward. The adage “you don’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been”rings especially true on this album.
Echo In The Dust builds on the alt-country elements ofAll Blue.“It's kind of punk, it's rock n’ roll, it's still kind of country. It's more rocking than All Blue. It'san amalgamation of everything going on in my mind.”
