Folkways at the University of Alberta

Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Recordings, developed a personal connection with Edmonton while his son Michael served as a professor of anthropology at the University of Alberta. It was on visits to the city in the 1970s and 1980s that Asch discovered Edmonton’s vibrant arts community. According to Michael it was here that “Moe” found a centre that was in touch with its past and willing to take risks and express itself artistically; a community with a major, diverse University; a lively folk music scene, including the Edmonton Folk Music Festival; and a radio station, CKUA, that provided a space for artistic and social expression with which he felt at home. Edmonton’s attributes convinced Moses Asch that this was the right location for the gift of a complete set of the Folkways recordings. Given to the University of Alberta in 1985, the Moses and Frances Asch Collection of Folkways Records is an unparalleled addition to the University’s musical resources. The Asch Collection provides a crucial reference for world music study and research and inspires the performance and teaching of global sound.

The University of Alberta honours the spirit of Folkways Records by encouraging scholarship, performance and research related to this vital art form that continually provokes, connects and surprises listeners. Inspiring scholarly projects across several disciplines, the initiative enables a variety of cultural and heritage research projects. The famously exhaustive liner notes, sound, and accompanying visuals from the Folkways label have been digitized and are in Room 3-47 of the historic Arts Building. This format allows researchers to fully explore the musical content, song texts, artist background and history of each selection, providing exciting opportunities for cross-disciplinary research. The mandate of the museum is to preserve, house and display the Folkways Records albums, covers, and related documents for academic use and for public viewing and enjoyment.

Mission

Inspired by Asch’s original vision, the folkwaysAlive! initiative connects “the people’s music” with broader audiences, while enhancing the collection’s strength as a reflection of Canada’s multicultural heritage. With the legacy of Folkways Records as inspiration, and in collaboration with Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, folkwaysAlive! intends to increase mutual understanding among cultural communities through the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge about their musical cultural heritage.

“…..[folk music] always gave you a sense of something that happened before, that someone set down for us to remember, for they always felt that there is a moral, a universality, a truth to something that people pick up and sing and talk about, and bring back from generation to generation.” Moses Asch to Albert Einstein on the notion of creating an “encyclopaedia of sound” by preserving and recording the sounds of how people lived, celebrated, and worshipped…..their folk ways.

(Young, Israel, 1977, “Moses Asch: Twentieth Century Man.” Interview by I. Young, edited by Josh Dunson. Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Vol 26/Number 1/1977. quoted by T. Olmsted (2003) “Folkways Records: Moses Asch and His Encyclopedia of Sound.” Routledge)

folkwaysAlive! preserves, discovers, disseminates and applies knowledge about the musical and cultural heritage of cultural communities, by supporting teaching and learning, research, creative activity, and community involvement in the local, national, and international spheres.