P’tit Ours

1. Overview

In a city historically shaped by small independent venues, coffee houses and intimate artistic spaces, P’tit Ours belongs to a longstanding Montreal tradition: places where proximity between artist and audience matters more than the size of the room.

Located at 5589 Park Avenue in Mile End, P’tit Ours is a micro-venue accommodating approximately 70 people standing or around thirty in a seated configuration. Its stage, measuring approximately 8 by 10 feet, helps create an almost immediate relationship between musicians and spectators.

Under its current name, the venue is relatively new. Its history, however, began several years earlier with Ursa, a project created by Montreal singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright and Nicolas Deslis.

2. Ursa: The Origins

In the spring of 2019, Martha Wainwright acquired the building at 5589 Park Avenue. A new music space called Ursa took shape in the basement, while POP Montreal occupied offices in the same building.

The first audiences were welcomed in late June 2019 during a preview event organized as a small weekend festival. The project was still developing, but its direction was already clear: Ursa was intended to serve both as an intimate concert venue and as a space available to the community.

For Wainwright, the idea was therefore not simply to open another music bar. Ursa was intended as a place where musicians, families, neighbours and artists could gather in a setting far more intimate than a conventional venue.

3. Martha Wainwright and the Idea of a Community Space

A member of a family deeply associated with Montreal’s musical history, Martha Wainwright was already familiar with both the advantages and challenges of small stages. With Ursa, she moved for the first time from the role of performer to that of venue owner and operator.

The project was developed with Nicolas Deslis and assistance from members of their family and community. Over the years, Ursa hosted concerts, gatherings, rehearsals, children’s activities and various artistic projects.

Its small size was precisely one of its strengths. In a room of this scale, there was little separation between stage and audience: artists performed practically in the midst of the people who had come to see them.

4. From Ursa to P’tit Ours

In September 2024, Martha Wainwright announced that she intended to step away from the day-to-day management of Ursa in order to devote more time to her own music.

The change could easily have meant the disappearance of another small Montreal venue. Instead, a new team drawn from the city’s independent music ecosystem agreed to take over the space.

Ursa officially ceased operating under its original name on October 1, 2024. The venue was immediately taken over and renamed P’tit Ours.

The change was therefore more of a handover than a closure followed by the creation of an entirely new venue: the same address, the same intimate space and the same desire to serve the music community, but with new management and a new identity.

5. A New Team

The takeover brought together several figures already well established within Montreal’s independent music scene: Mauro Pezzente, Caroline Desilets, Palden Khe-Changsoo, Shaun Bronstein and Daniel Seligman.

Several are associated with Casa del Popolo, POP Montreal and various music presentation or production projects. Palden Khe-Changsoo, in particular, plays an important role in the programming of the new venue.

These connections place P’tit Ours within a network of venues and organizations that has played an important role in the development of Montreal’s independent music scene since the turn of the 2000s.

6. Programming and the DIY Spirit

P’tit Ours deliberately maintains an eclectic program. Singer-songwriters, indie groups, rock, punk, jazz, experimental and electronic music can share the calendar with book launches, flamenco evenings, DJ sets, karaoke, piano-bar nights and community events.

One of the new administration’s objectives is to keep the space financially accessible to artists and small promoters. Weekday rental fees are eliminated or substantially reduced depending on the event, while weekend costs are kept as low as possible.

This policy particularly encourages DIY productions, emerging artists and events that might have difficulty finding a place in a larger venue.

The transition occurred quickly: concerts were already being presented under the P’tit Ours name during the months following the handover. An official celebration of the venue’s new incarnation was subsequently held in the spring of 2025.

7. The Importance of Micro-Venues

With a capacity of approximately 70 people, P’tit Ours sits at the smallest end of Montreal’s live music ecosystem. This characteristic might appear to limit its importance; historically, the opposite is often true.

Small venues form the first level of a musical ecosystem. They allow artists to perform before audiences long before they can fill rooms holding several hundred people. They also make possible experimental or marginal musical projects that would be difficult to sustain in larger establishments.

Montreal has a long history of such places. From the folk coffee houses of the 1960s to the punk, alternative and independent spaces of later decades, a considerable part of the city’s musical culture has developed in very small rooms.

P’tit Ours continues this tradition at a time when the disappearance of small stages makes every independent performance space particularly valuable.

8. Continuity and Legacy

The history of P’tit Ours is still too recent to speak of a legacy comparable to that of venues that disappeared several decades ago. Its historical interest lies instead in its continuity.

When Martha Wainwright decided to step away from the day-to-day management of Ursa, the venue did not disappear. A new generation of organizers took over the space, preserved its musical and community vocation, and integrated it into a broader independent music network.

P’tit Ours therefore represents a model essential to the survival of a local music scene: a small venue where established and emerging artists can perform only a few feet from their audience, and where the community participates directly in the life of the space.

Large venues present the artists audiences already know; small venues often make it possible to discover the artists they will know tomorrow.

9. Timeline

Spring 2019 — Martha Wainwright acquires the building at 5589 Park Avenue.

Late June 2019 — Ursa welcomes its first audiences during a preview event.

2019–2024 — Ursa operates as a small performance venue, café-bar and community space.

September 2024 — Martha Wainwright announces her withdrawal from the venue’s day-to-day management.

October 1, 2024 — Ursa ceases operating under its original name and the venue passes to the new team.

Fall 2024 — The venue at 5589 Park Avenue continues operating under the name P’tit Ours.

April 5, 2025 — Official opening celebration for P’tit Ours under its new incarnation.

2025–present — P’tit Ours continues to present independent concerts and community events.