We need to talk about the Estelle Klein Award
We’re getting toward the time of the year when Folk Music Ontario typically puts out a call for nominees for the Estelle Klein Award – and before it does that, I hope we can have a conversation. FMO needs to ...
Heather’s 2021 holiday love letter to the Roots Music Canada ...
As I write this, it feels as though we’re capping off a very sobering holiday season. Like you, perhaps, I went into this fall thinking we were seeing the end of COVID-related restrictions – that vaccines would deliver us from ...
Songs for the Revolution: climate call, musical response
There’s no denying it: we are living in the midst of a global climate emergency. Yet we go on with our daily lives. Where to start? What would be most effective? And how can we have a sense of hope ...
Songs for the Revolution: Strengthening our democracy
I am excited to begin this year with a new monthly column entitled “Songs for the Revolution.” Some of the topics I’ll be exploring are poverty, racism, equity, social justice, religion, immigration, culture and politics. I’ll look to explore them ...
Why streaming concerts should never end – even when social ...
It couldn’t have been a week from that first big wave of COVID-19 cancellations that musicians – the great innovators and adapters that they are – began taking to Facebook to perform online. At first, they were often impromptu sessions, ...
Love and art at the edge of apocalypse
Ever since Grade Seven social studies class, I’ve been walking around waiting for a piano to drop on my head. I remember going home to my parents and asking why they’d never told me about the prospect of a nuclear ...
We’re Back!
Folks, it’s Gordy the Moose here. As I write this, there’s a bright sun shining over moose country, and I’m getting a little misty thinking about what we’re doing here today. Folks, Roots Music Canada is back. I’m not going ...
How do we learn folk music? Part II
In the last article, I tried to avoid answering the question of whether written music is still relevant in folk music by posing two more questions, “What motivates one to learn to play or sing folk music?” and, “How do ...
How do we learn folk music?
Part 1 of a two-part series by Jack Cooper. When I studied the Introduction to Western Music History at Conrad Grebel College back in the early eighties, I came upon my first definition of folk music. It wasn’t anything cute ...
JP Cormier reaches the end of a long road
The burly Nova Scotian known for his lightning precision on anything with strings, JP Cormier, strode onto stage in Perth, ON, recently to a full house and announced this was to be his last tour. After 30 years on the ...