Calgary would love to become a famous modern music city like Austin or Nashville – and it may not be as far-fetched as you might think. During the 10 days of Stampede, Calgary is indeed a music city. Not only does the Stampede host 100+ concerts on 10 stages over 10 days, almost every major bar in town has live music every night, dozens of pancake breakfasts every morning have live music, as well as major outdoor concerts and Saddledome.

Yes, Stampede is like one big music festival. And, it is quickly followed by the Calgary International Folk Festival, making Calgary a fun music city for the month of July.

What is a Music City?

A music city has a vibrant year-round music scene. It hosts large-scale music festivals as well as a thriving live music and underground DIY music scene. To offers a diverse program of music genres and nurtures the development of local musicians of all ages. It is home to music schools and respected music companies. Tourist visit Music City because there is a critical mass of diverse live music experiences happening year-round.

Yes, Calgary has an extensive “music ecosystem” (the trendy term borrowed from the tech hub guys who borrowed it from biologists) that could be capitalized on to create a vibrant year-round music city. Let’s take a closer look.

FYI: I am not a music expert so I am sure I have missed some elements of Calgary’s diverse music scene, but I think you get the picture that Calgary has the makings of a vibrant year-round music scene.

A friend sent me this image of Stampede Park, where music attracts more than 500,000 people to the grounds for one of the 100+ music performances. If Calgary want to be a Music City then Stampede Park has to host hundreds outdoor and indoor concerts on a regular basis year-round, not just during Stampede.

During Stampede The Big Four Building (once the world’s largest curling complex) becomes road house with a variety of live performances. If Calgary wants to become a Music City, The Big Four Road House has to become an anchor for a year round music district at Stampede Park.

The Oxford Stomp is an annual outdoor concert featuring major acts at Stampede time.

Music Mile

Calgary has tried to brand 9th Avenue, from Macleod Trail to 14th St SE (i.e. Art Commons to Blues Can), as Calgary’s “Music Mile” listing 20 different venues. But most don’t have live music weekly, let alone daily. While Calgary has a budding music scene, perhaps we are getting a little ahead of ourselves branding 9th Avenue at the “Music Mile.”

The city’s ecosystem includes everything from choirs to big bands, from opera to street performers, from festivals to Saturday afternoon jams. While Calgary will never have the music history of places like Nashville or Memphis - or the iconic international music events like Austin’s City Limits or New Orleans’ Jazz and Heritage Festival, it does have a growing music scene.

Calgary is home to the largest museum devoted to Canada’s rich musical history. Calgary’s National Music Centre which opened in 2016, is home to the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Canadian Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and Quebec’s ADISQ Hall of Fame, as well as a collection of over 2,000 rare instruments. In addition to several exhibition spaces, it has a recording studio and live performance space too.

The National Music Centre also includes the restored King Eddy Hotel, an iconic Canadian live music venue, where many music legends have played, including BB King, John Hammond, Pinetop Perkins and Buddy Guy. Arts Commons hosts the BD&P World Stage that each year showcases music from around the word, from Argentinian tango to urban circus and contemporary icons of various music genres.

The National Music Centre hosts rotating exhibitions that tell the story of Canada’s music history. Yes, I am a huge Guess Who fan.

The National Music Centre building it impressive in size and design. It too, is located on the Music Mile.

Ballet, Opera & Orchestra

Calgary-based Alberta Ballet has created contemporary ballets with the likes of Joni Mitchell (2009), Sir Elton John (2010) and K.D. Lang (2013). Calgary Opera is one of the best opera companies in Canada, well known for commissioning new operas including “The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs” in partnership with four American opera companies. The Honens International Piano Competition, a triennial classical piano competition established 1992, is respected worldwide.

Calgary is home to two orchestras – The Calgary Philharmonic (professional) and The Calgary Civic Symphony (amateur). The Calgary Philharmonic, formed in 1955 with the merger of the Calgary Symphony and Alberta Philharmonic, performs for over 100,000 people each year and is the orchestra for both Alberta Ballet and Calgary Opera.

Fun Fact: Calgary is home to Kevin Chen a child progeny pianist, who started winning competitions as the age of eight and has won numerous competitions since then including the the Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv, Israel in 2023 at the age of 18.

The Bella Concert Hall one the Mount Royal University campus is Calgary’s newest music venue and it provides a great venue for students at the Mount Royal Conservatory and is part of the Taylor Centre For The Performing Arts. Calgary is also home to the Jack Singer concert Hall downtown and the Jubilee Auditorium on the SAIT campus. Note: In the ceiling of the Bella Concert Hall feature this huge Alberta Rose above the stage.

The Jack Singer Concert Hall is art of the Arts Commons campus that includes four other performance spaces, with plans to expand. The Jack Singer is home to the Carthy Organ (Canada’s largest) that features an hand-carved solid oak design with more than 1600 polished alloy and wood pipes. The organ was named in honor of the Carthy Foundation that helped arrange a $750,000 donation from the Mannix Family.

Live Music Venues

Calgary is also home to three major concert halls (Jack Singer at Arts Commons, Jubilee at SAIT and Bella Concert Hall at Mount Royal University), as well as the intimate Rozsa Centre with its gorgeous acoustics for choral and chamber music at the University of Calgary. Mount Royal University is also home to the Mount Royal Conservatory, established in 1911, which today it has 250+ teachers and 5,000 students.

As for Calgary’s live music scene, it is centred around the Blues Can (which hopefully can soon find a new home as its current location will be demolished for a new residential development), Ironwood Stage & Grill, Mikey’s in Bowness, Palace Theatre and Palomino. A growing coffee house music scene including places like Gravity and Congress Coffee Company, host live music nights on a regular basis. Avenue Magazine profiles 16 live music venues in Calgary.

Calgary also has a very active Folk Club music scene with 8 clubs overing concerts at various locations around the city. Also helping enhance the local music scene is former Calgary IT guy Derek Manns with the developed the Stagehand App that allows local venues to post available performance gigs for local musicians to play. Each year the App facilitates thousands of live music performances around the city in outdoor and indoor venues.

Fun Fact: Billboard Magazine recently recognized Calgarian Peter Kurczaba, now living in Los Angeles and senior director at Creative Sync, as one of their Top 40 Under 40.

Just down the street from The Blues Can is the Garry Theatre aka Ironwood Stage & Grill, which also offers live music 7 days a week. It is very popular for touring singer songwriters.

The Blues Can is one of just a couple venues in Calgary that over live music seven days a week. It too will be closing by the end of 20024 unless a new location can be found. Fortunately Mikey’s on 12th has found a new location in the Bowness Hotel, it too was force to move as a result of the demand for more City Centre housing.

The Festival Hall is the home of the Calgary International Folk Music Festival. Also located in Inglewood it offers a year-round music program and host the “Block Heater” music festival every winter.

Recordland in Inglewood is a must visit for anyone into vinyl with its collection of over one million albums. It is located on 9th Ave aka Music Mile.

If Caglary wants to be Music City, the Palace theatre on Stephen Avenue must become an anchor for a vibrant music scene along downtown’s Main Street. It needs to be Calgary’s equivalent to the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, with a diverse live music program seven days a week that attracts both locals and tourists to come downtown. It looks like it is closed for Stampede this year, could that be?

Rnchman’s Cookhouse & Dancehall is Canada’s oldest and largest honk tonk bar. It closed after COVID and only recently reopened. It is strangely located at 9615 Macleod Trail S as suburban commercial street. Ideally it should be downtown or at Stampede Park, where it could become a tourist attraction.

Music Festivals

Calgary hosts several major music festivals annually – including Block Heater, Calgary Folk Music Festival, Sled Island Music Festival and Country Thunder. With Calgary’s increasingly culturally diverse population has come a spectrum of cultural festivals which include music from around the world.

The Calgary Performing Arts Festival, formerly the Calgary Kiwanis Music Festival has been happening since 1931. Each year it showcases the talent of 1,000s of young musicians and singers under the age of 25 in the Calgary region.

For many, Calgary is Canada’s Country Music Capital, partly because of the Stampede but also because Canadian iconic country singer song writer Ian Tyson lived on a ranch just outside the city for decades. Today country music singer songwriters Tom Phillips, Paul Brandt and Corb Lund carry the torch as does Teri Clark grew up in Medicine Hat. There are plenty of honky tonk, roots, Americana, Bluegrass and alt country musicians living in Calgary.

Calgary has an emerging hip hop scene with Beni Johnson’s “10 at 10” events showcasing local and guest artists on a regular basis. Cartel Madras, two Calgary sisters, are emerging artists on the Canadian rap scene. In October 2023, Calgary-based musician Kuzi Cee, who combines R&B, hip-hop and Afrobeat, played to a sold-out audience in Hamburg, Germany.

Fun Fact: The Calgary Stampede could easily be branded as a mega music festival as it attracts over 500,000 people to various music venues on site, as well as headline concerts at the Saddledome and Fort Calgary Park.

Fun Fact: Calgary’s Prince’s Island is considered by many to be an iconic setting for a music festival.

The Calgary International Folk Festival allows you to get up close and personal with local and international artists.

To become a Music City Calgary needs to foster more small venues that offer live music on a regular basis like Calgary’s The Congress Coffee Company.

Juno Award Winners

Calgary is home several Juno Award winning musicians – including K.D. Laing, Jann Arden, Al Muirhead (jazz trumpeter) and Tegan and Sara to name a few.

Calgary’s Tate McRae won single of the year and best new artist at the 2024 Juno Awards. I hear from those in the know, there is a very strong underground music scene in Calgary that I know nothing about - basement and garage concerts in winter; random outdoor shows under bridges in summer - all well attended. In addition, the Calgary Stampede’s Young Canadians program has been an incubator for young Calgary musicians since 1968.

Fun Fact: Paul Brandt was a Young Canadian and he started his singing as a youth at the Gospel Hall (West Hillhurst) just around the corner from me.

Fun Fact: In 2014, Calgary’s Tim Williams was voted “guitarist of the year” and placed first in the solo-duo category at the International Blues Competition in Memphis. Hosting a Saturday afternoon blues jam at the Blues Can and playing solo Tuesday nights at Mikey’s, he is a hidden gem.

One of the unique elements of Calgary music ecosystem is Curbside Concerts, where you can book a local musician to perform from the curb outside your house, or wherever you want to have your own concert. What started as a COVID project by Matt Burgerner in Caglary is now Canada’s largest indigenous booking company. Photo credit: Calgary musician Jamie Allanach, Curbside Concerts..

Last Word

“The epicenters of musical innovation are always densely populated cities where different cultures meet and mingle, sharing their distinctive songs and ways of life. This intermixing results in surprising hybrids—new ways of making music that nobody can foresee until it actually happens in this hothouse environment.” Ted Gioia (music critic/historian)

While Calgary is Canada’s third most ethnically diverse city, its diversity is a relatively recent aspect of its evolution. Perhaps we just must be a little more patient before we can claim to be a “Music City.”

Fun Fact: While attending the Alberta College of Art (now the Alberta University of the Arts) in Calgary, Joni Mitchell launched her music career at The Depression in 1963, playing at the club regularly for three and half months and was part of the opening night act.

FYI: Want to know more about what Calgary needs to do to become Music Cities, check out West Anthem’s report: Resonant Energies: A Music City Strategy for Calgary.

Calgary: Music City Wannabe