Community Music in Alberta

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

Some 300 black-and-white photographs are featured in this
well-researched and animated study of community music in Alberta.
Drawing on local histories, diaries, and letters, the author, a Mount
Royal College professor, examines the various types of music Albertans
have created and played from the early pioneer days to more recent
times.

The photographs depict a vast range of performers, venues, and events:
dances; banjo, guitar, and fiddling performances; brass-band
presentations; family events; and public entertainments held throughout
Alberta in one-room schoolhouses, church basements, and community halls.
The photographs of the stampedes, pow-wows, community picnics, and
multicultural events convey a sense of the diversity that has existed in
Alberta over the years. Lyon’s text pulls together the diverse
elements that contributed to a uniquely Albertan musical style.

This engaging tribute to Alberta’s musicians, dancers, and performers
includes a bibliography that will be a treasure-trove for Canada’s
cultural historians.