Musicians want museum to showcase N.L. talent
Telegraph cables, wooden boats, even sawmill replicas: all are housed in dedicated buildings scattered across Newfoundland and Labrador. But one feature of North Atlantic culture — one some say is especially important — has been missing out.
Erin Best and Sandy Morris, better known as musical duo Rasa, are calling for a music museum: a place to preserve beloved artifacts, catalogue local artists and keep the province's heritage safe from the withering nature of time.
The pair met recently with MusicNL to pitch the idea, but as they told the St. John's Morning Show on Thursday, they can't take all the credit.
"It's something many people have been talking about for a long time," Best said.
"We need a music museum in Newfoundland and Labrador because obviously music is a cornerstone of our culture, and we don't have anything really to commemorate that."
Some of the province's noted musical acts are enshrined in The Rooms museum in St. John's, Best said, but there simply isn't enough space "of the size and importance that we need" to include acts like Brian MacLeod or the Ravens, artists Morris says may be forgotten by new generations.
Economic boost
The push isn't entirely motivated by sentiment, Best said — it's a tourism issue, too.
"I had a friend from Germany who was a huge music fan, but until we became friends she had no idea Newfoundland was a music place," she said.
"And I thought to myself, well, how would you know? We don't really celebrate music here in a way that's accessible."
Best and Morris are also proposing a provincially run website to list concerts and venues in addition to a bricks-and-mortar destination for music history.
Historical gems, like old fiddles and guitars, need climate control, they added — but not everything should be locked behind glass in a stuffy room.
"People should be able to play these instruments," Best said.
"We have so much music history here, and such a profound musical legacy, that we need a space to house that."
"If you don't preserve it," Morris said, "it's lost."
Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador
