Category Archives: Music and Performing Arts

Margie Gillis Dance Foundation Archival Holding at Library and Archives Canada

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Did you know that, since 2010, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has held the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation’s audiovisual, administrative and promotional materials?

Dance performance advertisement featuring Margie Gillis.

Dance performance advertisement featuring Margie Gillis.
© Margie Gillis Dance Foundation. Credit: Michael Slobodian

The Foundation itself chose LAC to preserve its documentary heritage as a result of a 2008 analysis report that strongly urged the Foundation to ensure the long-term preservation of its documentary heritage in a Canadian archive.

LAC has more than 1,100 photographs illustrating the career of this internationally acclaimed Canadian contemporary dancer and choreographer. The collection features photographs by nationally and internationally renowned photographers and artists, including Annie Leibovitz, Lois Greenfield, Cylla Von Tiedemann, Michael Slobodian and Jack Udashkin.

Black and white artistic dance photo of Margie Gillis

Black and white artistic dance photo of Margie Gillis.
© Margie Gillis Dance Foundation. Credit: Annie Leibovitz

The archival holding also includes about 750 hours of audiovisual materials. This unique collection of recordings shows Margie Gillis’s choreographic and artistic work from the beginning of her career to today. Her dance performances in Canada, the United States and around the world are thus preserved for posterity, along with her choreography labs and rehearsal sessions, and a large number of media interviews and reports.

In addition, the textual records, brochures and multiple posters in a variety of formats provide an overview of the activities carried out by the Foundation, which was created in 1981. The Foundation’s primary mission is to support, protect and promote the artistic vision of Margie Gillis, a pioneer and an innovator in contemporary dance.

All the materials in the holding are accessible. However, they may not be reproduced or used without the Foundation’s consent.

The fonds can be consulted online.

For more information about Margie Gillis and her dance foundation, please consult the Foundation’s website.

Yesterday Once More: Canada’s Music Industry in Portraits

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Do you have a favourite popular musician or rock group from the last three or four decades of the 20th century? There’s a good chance you’ll be able to find their photographs documented in the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) Portrait Portal.

The Portal contains photographs taken between 1963 and 2000, selected from LAC’s RPM fonds, an archive that includes thousands of Canada’s and the world’s most popular artists and bands. It also features actors, music and entertainment executives, broadcasters, politicians and sports figures rubbing shoulders with music industry greats. These portraits have been digitized and added to the Portrait Portal as part of LAC’s ongoing digitization initiatives.

What is the significance of the RPM archive to the Canadian music industry?

Founded in Toronto in 1964, RPM was a Canadian weekly trade publication that focused on the Canadian music recording and radio industries. In 1964 it established the RPM Gold Leaf Awards (also referred to as the Maple Leaf Awards), which would soon evolve into the JUNO Awards. RPM was among the parties that lobbied for Canadian content regulations in the broadcast media, and it inaugurated the RPM MAPL logo (with MAPL standing for music, artists, production, lyrics) that has been widely used to identify the Canadian content of commercial sound recordings. The periodical ceased publication in 2000.

According to Cheryl Gillard, a Library and Archives Canada music specialist, the collection of RPM photographs, now available online through the Portrait Portal, “allows anyone, anywhere to take a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the music industry. Also, for the first time, the Portal’s collection of RPM photos allows less high-profile but historically important Canadian music professionals to be documented and honoured.” This collection showcases Canadian popular culture and reflects the interconnection between the music industries in Canada and the United States.

You can search for photographs of popular musicians in the LAC Portrait Portal simply by entering the name of your favourite band or musician into the keyword search field.

For more information about Canada’s music industry, check out LAC’s RPM database, which contains the digitized versions of the music charts in RPM Weekly from 1964 to 2000. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) website is also a great place to search for a list of past JUNO award recipients—and more!

Spotlight on theatre posters

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Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has an extraordinary collection of posters promoting theatre in Canada from the 19th century to the present day. These posters are found in a wide variety of private and public archives and collections, including those of Vittorio, Theo Dimson, Guy Lalumière et Associés Inc., Normand Hudon and Robert Stacey.

Theatre posters also feature in the archives of such Canadian personalities as Marshall MacLuhan and Sydney Newman, and even in collections of old documents—for example, the theatre playbills printed on board the ships in the expedition in search of Sir John Franklin (around 1850-1853).

In addition, we must mention the archives of various theatre and stage artists and professionals (Gratien Gélinas, Jean Roberts and Marigold Charlesworth, John Hirsch and others), and of artistic and cultural institutions such as the National Arts Centre, Theatre Canada, the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, the Globe Theatre and the Stratford Festival.

But the real treasure trove of theatre posters can be found in the “Posters” series of the performing arts collection, which comprises about 750 posters and programs, and in the miscellaneous poster collection, which includes about 3,170 posters.

You might say that theatre posters play a starring role at LAC!

For sample posters, please see our Flickr album.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Join the dance! – Dance Archives at LAC

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Did you know that Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has fonds and collections related to dance in Canada? These include fascinating documents in a variety of formats on many aspects of this major component of the performing arts.

These fonds illustrate the careers of the founder of the National Ballet of Canada, Celia Franca, and a few of its principal dancers, including Veronica Tennant and Karen Kain.

Other fonds focus on the achievements of companies and artists in the field of modern dance, including the Groupe de la Place Royale, co-founded in 1966 by choreographers and dancers Jeanne Renaud and Peter Boneham. LAC also holds the fonds for the Toronto Dance Theatre and the Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, which are among the leading institutions in modern dance.

The collection also includes archives from schools of dance and of dance pioneers in Canada, including the Lacasse-Morenoff, the Gina Vaubois and the Ottawa Ballet Company, founded by Nesta Toumine in 1947, and Alex Pereima, ballet dancer and arts administrator.

At the same time, there are a certain number of fonds related to institutions that support dance companies and artists in Canada, including the Canada Council for the Arts, the 
National Arts Centre Corporation, the Canadian Conference of the Arts and the Dance in Canada Association.

Many dance-related posters and photographs can be found through our Archives Image Search tool, using the keywords “dance” or “ballet.” You are also invited to consult our Flickr album.

Keep in mind that not all of our documents are available online. However, you can order archived documents through our online Request for Retrieval of Documents form. Please consult our article on How to consult material that is not yet available online for more information.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Celebrate Glenn Gould on the 80th Anniversary of His Birth (1932–1982)

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Library and Archives Canada (LAC) celebrates, today, the life and career of iconic Canadian musician Glenn Gould .

Born in Toronto, Ontario on September 25, 1932, Glenn Gould is internationally recognized as one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. Gould was, and remains, a pianist widely revered for his probing musical thought, his clear sound and his unearthly, flawless technique. His performances and recordings of works by Johann Sebastian Bach are renowned.

Did you know?

LAC is the official home of the Glenn Gould Archive, which contains:

  • handwritten diaries and unpublished writings
  • annotated scores and compositions
  • incoming and outgoing correspondence
  • concert programs
  • school and conservatory records
  • recording session logs and papers designated by Gould as “keepers”
  • promotional material
  • medical and financial records
  • photographs and non-commercial audio and video recordings

LAC gifted Glenn Gould’s piano and equally iconic custom-made chair to the National Arts Centre (NAC) in Ottawa this year. Read about the piano by visiting NAC’s website [http://www.nac-cna.ca/en/stories/series/glenn-goulds-piano].

To learn more about Glenn Gould and listen to samples from the Glenn Gould Archive, visit LAC’s virtual exhibition on Glenn Gould.

Please remember that not all of our material is available online. Consult our article:
How to Consult Material that Is Not Yet Available Online.

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Listen to Canada’s Musical History with the Virtual Gramophone

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From patriotic songs and sentimental ballads from the First World War era to classical vocalists and instrumentalists from the 1920s to 1940s; that is what you will find on the Library and Archives Canada website the Virtual Gramophone. This is a great place to listen to recordings from our music collection!

Our Virtual Gramophone website documents the history of the recorded sound industry in Canada, provides biographies of Canadian performers, presents a video of a working gramophone, allows you to search the database, and you can listen to some recordings.

Some of the recordings available online include:

  • Patriotic songs and sentimental ballads of the First World War era
  • Recordings from the rising vaudeville and jazz scenes, and the dance band craze of the 1920s
  • Music from Quebec in the 1920s and 1930s, including the recordings of Madame Édouard (Mary Travers) Bolduc
  • Popular music of the post-First World War era, including recordings from New Brunswick’s Henry Burr, the most prolific recording artist of his time
  • Classical vocalists and instrumentalists from the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, including Emma Albani, Pauline Donalda, Sarah Fischer, and Hubert Eisdell
  • Military bands, popular songs, and other material in both English and French recorded or released by the Berliner Gramophone of Montreal circa 1901 to 1910

Although the website is no longer updated, it is still a great place to access some of our digitized recordings of the 78-rpm and cylinder music collection held by Library and Archives Canada.

If you have a keen interest in Canadian music, our other websites may also be of interest:

Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!

Remembering the Titanic at LAC – Part II: Published Materials

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A postcard of a large ship on the ocean

A postcard of the “Ill-fated Titanic”, circa 1912 (e004155512_s1)

The sinking of the Titanic was a source of inspiration for musicians and filmmakers and Library and Archives Canada has some interesting pieces of audio-visual and music material in its collection! Let’s continue exploring:

Music

  • Titanic [music], words by Charles Lavell, music by Norman Fraser, 1912 (OCLC 498649021)
  • Men be British!, words and music by C.A. Frame, 1912. (OCLC 1007608738)
  • The ice king’s bride: song, words by Cecil E. Selwyn, music by Arthur A. Penn, 1913.  (OCLC 1007535382)
  • The loss of the Titanic : song, words and music by Arthur S. Leslie, 1912 (OCLC 1007608969)
  • Back to Titanic , original music composed and conducted by James Horner. Includes My heart will go on performed by Céline Dion, (OCLC 1006762159)
  • Titanic [music]: a voyage in piano music by Rebekah Maxner (OCLC 758437127)

Films and Audio Recordings

  • G. Kleine collection R8745-0-3-E,3 film reels (7 min). Collection consists of short documentary clips about skating in Montreal, skating on the canal and the sinking of the Titanic .
  • The discovery of the Titanic [sound recording] by Robert D. Ballard, with Rick Archbold, 1989. (OCLC 1032981850)
  • Titanic troubles [sound recording], part of The time capsule series of books by Ouita Petty, 1996, (OCLC 79684269)
  • Titanic [sound recording]: survivors in their own voice (1915-1999), (OCLC 226950845)

Books

  • RMS Titanic : the first violin : the life and loss of  the Titanic’s violinist, John Law Hume by Yvonne Hume with a foreword by Millvina Dean, Titanic’s last survivor (OCLC 766386309)
  • Poems that will interest everybody [microform]  by Angus McLaughlin (OCLC 53656650)
  • The wreck of the Titanic by Andrew O’Malley* (OCLC 433993426)
  • Titanic disaster : report of the Committee on Commerce,  United States Senate, pursuant to S. Res. 283, directing the Committee on Commerce to investigate the causes leading to the wreck of the White Star liner Titanic : together with speeches thereon by Senator  William Alden Smith of Michigan, and Senator Isidor Rayner of Maryland (OCLC 560852846)

*E-copy available.

For information on how to order published material, please read our post “How to Consult Material that Is Not Yet Available Online”.

 Questions or comments? We would love to hear from you!