Sherry Johnson

Anna Hoefnagels

Judith Klassen

Music and dance in Canada today are diverse and expansive, reflecting histories of travel, exchange, and interpretation and challenging conceptions of expressive culture that are bounded and static. Reflecting current trends in ethnomusicology, Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada examines cultural continuity, disjuncture, intersection, and interplay in music and dance across the country. Essays reconsider conceptual frameworks through which cultural forms are viewed, critique policies meant to encourage crosscultural sharing, and address ways in which traditional forms of expression have changed to reflect new contexts and audiences. From North Indian kathak dance, Chinese lion dance, early Toronto hip hop, and contemporary cantor practices within the Byzantine Ukrainian Church in Canada to folk music performances in twentieth-century Quebec, Gaelic milling songs in Cape Breton, and Mennonite songs in rural Manitoba, this collection offers detailed portraits of contemporary music practices and how they engage with diverse cultural expressions and identities. At a historical moment when identity politics, multiculturalism, diversity, immigration, and border crossings are debated around the world, Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada demonstrates the many ways that music and dance practices in Canada engage with these broader global processes. Contributors include Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw (Queen's University), Meghan Forsyth (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Monique Giroux (University of Lethbridge), Ian Hayes (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Anna Hoefnagels (Carleton University), Judith Klassen (Canadian Museum of History), Chris McDonald (Cape Breton University), Colin McGuire (University College Cork), Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), Laura Risk (McGill University), Neil Scobie (University Western Ontario), Gordon Smith (Queen's University), Heather Sparling (Cape Breton University), Jesse Stewart (Carleton University), Janice Esther Tulk (Cape Breton University), Margaret Walker (Queen's University), and Louise Wrazen (York University).

Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada

Gordon E. Smith

Folk Music, Traditional Music, Ethnomusicology: Canadian Perspectives, Past and Present features the proceedings of the Fiftieth Annual Conference of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music / La Société Canadienne pour les Traditions Musicales (formerly the Canadian Folk Music Society / La Société canadienne de musique folklorique) that took place in November, 2006 in Ottawa at Carleton University and the Canadian Museum of Civilization. This publication showcases the diversity of music research currently being conducted by folk and traditional music specialists, ethnomusicologists, and practicing musicians in Canada. The papers are organized in five sections according to common themes in contemporary research in ethnomusicology and folk music studies, and each section is preceded by a short introduction which highlights the section’s theme(s) as well as the individual papers. Folk Music, Traditional Music, Ethnomusicology: Canadian Perspectives, Past and Present confirms the rich history of the Canadian Society for Traditional Music, a history that comprises enormous changes in scholarly research, musical practice, emergent technologies, changes in doing fieldwork, and shifting identity boundaries over the past fifty years. This volume is intended as a contribution to published literature on ethnomusicological and folklore research in Canada, creating a new resource of historical, contemporary, and scholarly relevance that will appeal to academics and music enthusiasts alike. "Canadian ethnomusicologists' expertise in the realm of First Nations musics, and Anglo, Celtic and French folksong repertories is already well established. This volume shows us the breadth of cultural territory with which 21st-century Canadian scholars of music and scholars of Canadian musics are now engaged, as well as their theoretical and methodological sophistication. " —Kati Szego, School of Music, Memorial University

Anna Hoefnagels

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