An extraordinary event next Thursday in Calgary deserves national attention. In a public show at the Grand Theatre, five architects will present their proposals for the Cantos Music Foundation’s new national music centre, which will be built on the site of the old King Eddy Hotel in Calgary’s East Village.

Cantos has been active in Calgary for several years, and it’s kind of a bunch of things at once. It houses easily the most complete collection of historical keyboard instruments in Canada, from historic and replica harpsichords and fortepianos, to a big old movie-house organ with drums and noisemakers attached, to the piano Elton John used to write Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and assorted electronic keyboards. It’s a peformance space and it organizes musical events in the broader Calgary community. It has music-education programs. And it’s the new home of the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame collection.

But that’s just the beginning of what comes next. My conversations with the people at Cantos suggest they want to move, in one great big step, from being an important Calgary organization to being a significant national institution. The amazing list of architects who’ll be in town pitching their wares on July 23 gives a hint of the scale of that ambition. How’s this for a short list:

• Jean Nouvel, winner of the 2008 Pritzker Prize and designer of more kind of crazy-wonderful buildings than you can shake a stick at, including the Abu Dhabi Louvre and the new Paris Philharmonie. Continue…