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 ⇐   May 14th, 2023   ⇏ 

Copyright 2023 Michael Anttila

Aunt Rena tipped me off about an exhibit at the City of Waterloo Museum all about the history of Waterloo's music scene. Thanks to some intrepid local promoters in the 60's - 90's, many top rock bands came through the Waterloo region. I managed to catch the tail end of the rock music scene when I was at university here, with big Canadian bands playing on campus, and even bigger international bands playing in downtown Kitchener.

While the exhibit was mostly about the rock scene, I was pleasantly surprised to find a large area devoted to the Waterloo Concert Band (formerly called the Waterloo Musical Society Band). The band was famous for several things, including being the first band to be broadcast live across the country on CBC radio, and for hosting huge band music festivals in Waterloo Park.

The band's most famous director (from 1919 to 1951) was C.F. Thiele, who was responsible for the above things, and the founder of the Waterloo Music Company, so the exhibit included a lot of information about him as well. At some point in the past I read a history of Waterloo, and here are some notes I made about Thiele:

Since I started university at the tail end of the rock music era, unfortunately they didn't have any memoribilia from the concerts that I attended, but it was still a fun exhibit to see.

Technical Details: These photos were taken with my Pixel 6.

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