“I think it's very interesting, when you look in history, at what's lasted,” Melanie Gall says. “Everyone knows the Beatles … there were some really great performers at the same time as the Beatles that no one remembers now. Cultural icons can easily be lost.”

Gall’s been working at a solution though: using her art to remember what’s being forgotten. The multi-faceted singer-performer-author has documented “lost” wartime songs about knitting and disappearing prohibition-era tunes in her albums. She’s written a book and toured a show about the life of Deanna Durbin, Winnipeg-born star of the early silver screen—at one time the biggest star in Hollywood, but now largely forgotten—among other preservation-focused projects.

Her reinvigoration of history hasn’t gone unnoticed: Gall is this year’s recipient of the St Albert Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts Award in the Mid-Career Artist category, acknowledging the incredible work she’s already accomplished, and the work yet to come.

After all, preservation seems increasingly important: as technology advances, early records become more difficult or outright impossible to access. Safeguarding such ideas while we can is vital to ensuring we still have access to them, Gall notes.

“We're going to be poorer for the loss of this history,” she says. “When all of a sudden there are gaps that weren't written about at the time, or that were overlooked … Plus, it's always good to have a niche in the arts.”

It’s a niche that’s worked well for her: Gall has toured her work across Africa, South America, the Caribbean, and Europe. But her career began here in St Albert. She notes she grew up with incredible opportunities to develop her artistic skills and sensibilities, the benefits of which aren’t lost on her now.

“We had the Kiwanis Festival that then became the Rotary Festival, We had St. Albert Children's Theatre—we had so many opportunities to perform,” Gall notes. “The arts were pretty strong in schools. People growing up in other places, they certainly didn't have [those] amazing programs. I really do appreciate the start I got in St. Albert.”

And as for receiving a mayor’s celebration of the arts award, Gall appreciates the particular phrasing of her category.

“It's not like I could retire tomorrow, but also I've been doing this for 20 years now,” she says. “I'm hoping in 20 more years I'll still be doing it. ‘Mid-career’ is a very good way to put it, because people get these lifetime achievement awards, which are great. But I definitely feel like I have some lifetime left in my art.”

Article Written by: Paul Blinov

More information about Melanie Gall and her work can be found at melaniegall.com 

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