Grande Prairie & District Music Festival fonds. — 1927-2009. — 30 cm of textual records.
Agency History
The concept of the Grande Prairie Music Festival originated with the “Women’s Music Club” that was active in Grande Prairie in 1921. This organization promoted the idea of music festivals. Early organizers of festivals included Mrs. F. Barber-Smith, A.E. Galway, and L. B. Yule, Superintendent of Schools. The first joint festival with Peace River and Grande Prairie participants was held May 25-26, 1927. By 1932, Grande Prairie was holding its own annual festivals, and in 1945 the festival became non-competitive. This resulted in a decline of interest and there are no records of festivals held from 1948 to 1951. Attempts were made to revive the festival as a competition in 1952-1953, but it was not until 1959 that music teacher Martin Intscher led the community to re-establish the music festival. With the support of the Allied Arts Council and the Grande Prairie School Board, the next festival was held in 1962 and annual festivals have been held ever since. In 1962, the festival categories included elocution, public speaking, penmanship, dancing, drama, art, and crafts as well as music entries. A number of organizational innovations were attempted in order to improve the caliber of participants. To this end, Grande Prairie planned to share the festival with Dawson Creek on a rotational basis. Only one such festival, the Peace Country Arts Festival in 1964, was held in Dawson Creek. In 1965, Grande Prairie joined the Alberta Music Festival Association and through this affiliation has opened the festival to participants from the entire Peace country. The name was later changed to Grande Prairie and District Music Festival, and is still in operation.
Custodial History
The earliest of these records were housed at the Grande Prairie Public Library and were donated by Libarian, Pam Chislett, to South Peace Regional Archives in 2008. An accrual of Festival programs and Grand Concert programs was donated by Barbara Donkin in 2009.
Scope and Content
The fonds consists of a history of music festivals in Grande Prairie, district, financial statements, Festival programs, Festival Grand Concert programs and a copy of the Alberta Music Festival Association annual report for 1985.
Notes
Table of Contents
| Series 491.01 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival History |
| Series 491.02 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival Programs |
| Series 491.03 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival Grand Concerts |
| Series 491.04 | Alberta Music Festival Association |
| Series 491.01 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival History. — 1927-1973. — 1 cm of textual records.The series consists of documents tracing the history of the Grande Prairie Music Festival from 1921-1968, including an article by Herbert G. Turner titled “How Culture Came to North America”, a copy of the Peace River Music Festival Programme from 1927 when the first music festival was held, and financial statements from 1969-1973. Financial statements for 1971, 1972, 1976, 1978, 1979 are contained in the back of the next year’s programs. |
| Series 491.02 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival Programs. — 1944-2009. — 23.5 cm of textual records.The series consists of program booklets for each festival showing schedules for each of the classes of competition, locations, names of competitors, patrons, committee members and in some cases names of adjudicators and copies of newspaper articles. |
| Series 491.03 | Grande Prairie & District Music Festival Grand Concerts. — 1969-2009. — 4.5 cm of textual records.The series consists of programs for the Grand Concert at the Grande Prairie Music Festival which list concert presenters, award winners, patrons and donors, and recommendations for provincial competitions. Some programs include names of festival committee members and news articles are sometimes inserted. |
| Series 491.04 | Alberta Music Festival Association. — 1985. — 1 cm of textual records.The series consists of a copy of The Alberta Music Festival Association annual report for 1985 which includes reports from member festival groups in the province. Grande Prairie & District Music Festival has belonged to this group since 1965. |