Alberta’s wild-rose-scented summer winds are blowing in, carrying sweet notes of bluegrass and funk, country and Celtic, and all that jazz. You’ll find music festivals for every taste amidst a backdrop of Rocky Mountains, prairies, hoodoos and cityscapes.
The stage is set for a red-hot line up of music festivals that vary as much in sound as they do in geography. You’ll find everything from urban folk festivals to Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture accompanied by the cannons of the Royal Canadian Artillery.
Check out Alberta holiday packages that rock. Read on for a sneak peek of summer music. The concerts and festivals are easily accessible from the international gateway cities of Edmonton and Calgary.
Beethoven in the Badlands
The venues often distinguish Alberta’s music festivals. You can listen to the drama of Beethoven amidst the bones of million-year-old dinosaurs, or hear searing southern blues in the cool shade of mountain peaks. Visit a jazz festival one week and the Calgary Stampede – with its headliners including The Judds – the next.
Spend June 7 with Beethoven in the Badlands, a unique classical celebration performed by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra in a natural amphitheatre surrounded by strange rock formations.
“The sound for Beethoven is just stunning,” says Virginia Haahr, tourism marketing manager for Travel Drumheller. “And there’s nothing in the hills to break up the view. It looks ancient.”
Rock and All That Jazz
If you like more volume at your party, then the Virgin Festival Calgary is probably more your speed. Put simply, this is rock ’n’ roll heaven in Calgary from June 21-22. More than 17 bands are poised to make Calgary’s ears ring for two days of good times, including local legend Corb Lund, Canada’s The Tragically Hip, and The Stone Temple Pilots.
If you love jazz, visit Canada’s oldest jazz festival. From June 24-29, Calgary is home to the likes of the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet, Wynton Marsalis, Pink Martini and Maceo Parker.
“We’re putting the fest back into Jazz Festival,” says Patrick Maiani, producer of the festival and executive director of C-Jazz Carnivale. “There’ll be a New Orleans style second-line parade going down Stephen Avenue every night telling people to quit work and come on down to hear the music.”
“There’ll be late-night jams every night too,” he adds. “So if you head down to The Auburn Saloon, you get these players from all over the world who’ve never met before and they get together and just jam into the wee hours of the morning.”
Stephen Avenue is a downtown walkway with patios, restaurants, bars and shopping for every taste.
Can’t get enough jazz? Get a jump on the Calgary show by heading to Medicine Hat for the Medicine Hat Jazz Fest in southern Alberta from June 23-29. This year it spans seven days and will have some of the best artists playing jazz every which way but Sunday.
Enjoy Folk Music Festivals
At the height of summer, when the last wavering saxophone note expires and the orchestra packs up and the cowboys exit the Stampede exhausted, come up for a breath of fresh air at some of the finest folk festivals in Canada.
Both the Calgary Folk Music Festival and the Edmonton Folk Music Festival are auditory smorgasbords.
The Calgary Folk Music Festival offers 65 artists from around the world, who perform on up to seven separate stages. It’s a long weekend of musical bliss at Prince's Island Park from July 24-27. The festivals have an incredibly cool vibe, there's plenty of shade, a relaxed atmosphere and more musical diversity than you can imagine.
Both the Calgary and Edmonton festivals offer tree-shaded beer tents and a wide variety of ethnic foods from around the world.
On any given day in Edmonton from Aug. 7-10, some 10,000 people gather in the inner city to soak in the sights and sounds of their favorite musicians.
“Musically, it’s pretty eclectic,” says Vicky Fannon, manager of volunteers for the festival. “There’s some traditional folk, celtic, blues, singer songwriters, bluegrass, some traditional Americana and more.”
Big Valley Jamboree
For country music fans, there’s the Big Valley Jamboree. From July 31- Aug. 3, you’ll see tens of thousands of people and more cowboy hats per square inch than any other music festival around. Camrose’s Big Valley Jamboree is a country-music extravaganza. About 20 of today’s top stars put in full concert performances over the four-day event.
Scaled-Down Folk Jams
But if intimacy and spectacular location are factors in the concerts you choose, then the Canmore Folk Music Festival from Aug. 2-4 will be hard to beat.
“The draw is the people and the location,” says Ken Rooks, festival director. “We’re in Centennial Park in the Canadian Rockies with mountains all around. It’s second to none in terms of beauty.”
With capacity crowds last year, festival organizers have rearranged the site with better seating and better views of the stage. Although there is no beer tent, Canmore’s main-street bars are only two blocks away.
“The jam sessions are the heart and soul of the festival and they are pure magic,” says Rook. “You’ll hear music you might never hear again.”
End with a Bang
The Labour Day weekend ends with a bang at the Symphony Under The Sky festival. For four days – Aug. 29-Sept. 1 – music fans get their chance to enjoy classical favorites performed by the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra at Hawrelak Park.
The festival gives audiences a range of works by different composers and is crowned by a performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture accompanied by the cannons of the 20th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery.