Notable artists who performed at the festival included conductors Emil Cooper, Laszlo Halasz, Erich Leinsdorf, Charles Munch, Charles O'Connell, and Eugene Ormandy; pianists Gyorgy Cziffra, José Iturbi, and Wilhelm Kempff; and singers Rose Bampton, Marjorie Lawrence, Grace Moore, Martial Singher, and Eleanor Steber.
[5] The MSO opened the first festival on 15 June 1936 with a performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion and Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No.
The winter series featured chamber music performances, mostly by the McGill String Quartet, and programs of French art songs by renowned singers.
Among the operas mounted by the company were Verdi's Aida; La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, and Tosca by Giacomo Puccini;, Georges Bizet's Carmen; Jules Massenet's Manon, and Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus among others.
The festival also notably presented the Canadian premieres of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos (1946, in a production toured by the New York City Opera company) and Igor Stravinsky's Histoire du soldat (1949) during David's tenure.
[2] Sir Thomas Beecham became the festival's chief conductor between 1941 and 1945, leading performances of Johannes Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem, Edward Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem, Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, and Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde among other major works.
The festival notably presented the Canadian premieres of Arthur Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher (1953); Jean Racine's classic tragedy Athalie with music by baroque composer Jean-Baptiste Moreau and new music by Clermont Pépin (1956); Ildebrando Pizzetti's Assassinio nella cattedrale (1959); Maurice Ravel's L'heure espagnole (1961); Claudio Monteverdi's Vespro della Beata Vergine 1610 (1962); and Gilbert Bécaud's L'Opéra d'Aran (1965).