Today@Dal

From Thursday's issue of The Coast:

When I was about to move here from Montreal, my Québécois friends—who weren't sure exactly where Halifax was located—all agreed that the city had an excellent music scene. While Halifax's musical reputation wasn't the main thing that drew me here (you can't beat a good job for that), it did make me feel better about the move. And since I got here, I've found the rumour to be true. Halifax does indeed have pretty amazing music. But the question is, How come it got so good? And can it last? Some big names come from here, for sure.

Sloan, Wintersleep, Joel Plaskett, Symphony Nova Scotia—you can reel them off yourself. But they are not what the music scene is based on. They're the tip of the iceberg, so to speak—glinting in the sunlight, and attracting lots of attention, but resting on a great big hidden lump of solid hard work by people whose names will never go up in lights.

Think about it: there are the community ensembles run for pleasure by volunteers, like the youthful new Halifax Music Co-op and the Chebucto Symphony Orchestra. There are all the bands of buddies in the basement who gig every now and then at somebody's party. There are scores of private music teachers, often woefully underpaid, who nurture the city's prodigies, as well as the simply talented or keen students, too.

There are the businesspeople, managers and bar staff who keep the music venues going, and the folk who work crazy hours to bring you the Jazz Festival and the Pop Explosion. There are music programs at universities and in schools. The Halifax schools' All-City Music Program, founded in 1967 on the premise that music is for everyone, has been instrumental in producing generations of musicians and music-lovers of all abilities.

These initiatives, however, cannot thrive on sea-air and enthusiasm alone.

Read the rest of this article at The Coast's website.