Endangered Music in St. Mary’s Bay/ CLARE- The hidden music gem of Nova Scotia, Canada

© Ekphrasis Studio, 2015

The project is supported from Nova Scotia Department of Communities, Culture and Heritage, &  Municipality of Clare

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The project consolidates the first music history in 4 centuries of Saint Mary’s Bay- Clare, Nova Scotia. While a great deal of information was hardly recorded in writing or digitzed, there does still exist a great body of information and recordings, largely in private collections, and scattered in various archives and books, as well as within the memories of the area’s residents. The information below does provide in English, a look at music in Clare from 1768 to 2016. The following information will be always updated, so please come back to check for more videos, info and songs, and feel free to contact us if you have any info to share.

Background: Clare Municipality/ Baie Sainte-Marie is an area of South-West Nova Scotia, settled by Acadians in 1768, in the land known by the Mi’kmaw as Kespukwitk, or “Land’s End”. The Acadians settled the area after returning from 13 years of exile from Nova Scotia. Clare is the municipal name of the area, while Baie Sainte-Marie is the colloquial name, coming from the name of the bay adjacent to the shore.  Today it is the only bilingual municipality in Nova Scotia, with a majority French-speaking population, along with a common Nova Scotia ethnic profile of Irish, Scottish, German, Mi’kmaq, Metis, and so on. Universite Sainte- Anne, mainly in French, now draws hundreds of international students each year to the area, as well as some international staff, who add to the cultural fabric. 

Click here for the complete research!