Editor’s Note

“A man with­out cul­ture is like a zebra with­out stripes” (African Proverb)

Our first fall Mag­a­zine edi­tion enters the sea­son grace­fully. We have another arti­cle from Denis Bertrand’s con­tin­u­ing col­umn on how to know your audi­ence… social media can­not do it alone!

Is it really purely by coin­ci­dence that we have two arti­cles mak­ing ref­er­ence to the Massey-Lévesque Report in this month’s edi­tion of the Mag­a­zine? Obvi­ously, the issue is top­i­cal: it is raised by our fea­tured mem­ber and in a let­ter to the edi­tor taken from the Globe and Mail.

Our fea­tured mem­ber this month is the new direc­tor of the pres­ti­gious Banff Cen­tre, Jeff Melan­son. Melan­son addresses the sec­ond phase of the Banff Centre’s revi­tal­iza­tion pro­gram. He talks about trans­for­ma­tion processes, hav­ing been directly involved in that of the Royal Con­ser­va­tory of Music and of the National Bal­let School.

We also present an Op-Ed, writ­ten by Edgar A. Cowan, John Hob­day and Ian E. Wil­son, pub­lished in the Sep­tem­ber 4th edi­tion of the Globe and Mail. The authors speak about the essen­tial role that cul­ture can play in the dig­i­tal econ­omy and talk about the need for a new roadmap for cul­tural poli­cies. Inter­est­ingly enough, you will find sim­i­lar­i­ties with the approach taken by Great Britain in devel­op­ing its new cul­tural poli­cies. Our Anglo­phone read­ers may have already come across the let­ter in the news­pa­per but at the CCA we want, from time to time, to share arti­cles that may not have been shared in both lan­guages or in other parts of the coun­try. We want to enable con­ver­sa­tions across the coun­try and help read­ers learn about com­mu­ni­ties from all over Canada.

While watch­ing the vast array of cul­tural per­for­mances at the Lon­don Olympic Games this sum­mer, I had to ask myself what if any­thing will be the legacy of all that? I asked Jes­sica Litwin, who worked for the CCA for three years, if she could be our observer  in Lon­don dur­ing the 2012 Games and explain the impact of the Olympics on cul­ture across the pond. How­ever, those who know Jes­sica Litwin know she could never be lim­ited to only speak­ing about the Olympic Games. To my great excite­ment, Jes­sica has gone above and beyond what was asked of her. She has given us insight on the cul­tural poli­cies feed­ing the Olympic Games. She also describes how the Games fit into the cul­tural strate­gies of the United King­dom. The first part of the arti­cle is avail­able to every­one, but the arti­cle in its entirety, is only avail­able to mem­bers and will be avail­able in the upcom­ing days.

Our next edi­tion will be com­pletely ded­i­cated the CBC and the license renewal hear­ings at the CRTC that will start on 19th of Novem­ber. Like it or not, the CBC has impacted the lives of all Cana­di­ans. If you would like to be a part of the dis­cus­sion, send us an arti­cle or share your opin­ion on the sub­ject on our website.

Finally, my inner hockey fan is a lit­tle dev­as­tated by the NHL lock­out. But oth­ers, such as Denis Bertrand, see it as an oppor­tu­nity for arts pre­sen­ters. Why not install air hockey tables in the entrance of the­atres? It would be a won­der­ful oppor­tu­nity to recruit new audiences!

Happy read­ing!

Anne-Marie