The history of the National Arts Centre is now available for the public to explore thanks to a donation from a prolific Canadian arts journalist.
Sarah Jennings has provided Library and Archives Canada with more than 100 interview recordings about the NAC’s first 40 years.
Voices of leading figures responsible for the NAC during its first four decades can be found in the new archive source.
They intimately recall the institution’s successes and struggles through an array of personal memories and reflections.
The material was donated by Jennings, who collected the hundreds of hours of recordings while researching for her book: Art and Politics: The History of the National Arts Centre, which was published in 2009.
Jennings is an experienced reporter whose work has been heard on the CBC.
She has written for publications ranging from the Globe and Mail to the Wall Street Journal .
She set out to record broadcast quality interviews, so that they may one day be given to the public.
“There was no point talking to all these people unless that material was going to be of use in the long term,” says Jennings, who was also taught at Carleton University for a dozen years. “I saw this more as a public resource when I created it and that’s what I wanted it to be.”
The collection contains conversations with giants of the early Canadian art world .
Giants such as the performing arts director Robert Lepage, founding conductor Mario Bernardi, and G. Hamilton Southam, the founder of the NAC.
“[Library and Archives Canada] holds the fonds of many prominent journalists from different periods of time,” says Richard Provencher, head of media relations at the archives.
“However, this donation is noteworthy because from the start Jennings knew she would eventually be providing this material for the greater public.”
What also makes Jennings’ donation unique from those of other writers and authors is that she has waived copyright on the collection.
This means anyone, from researchers to students, are allowed full use of the material.
The “Sarah Jennings fonds” – fonds is the French term used by Canadian archives to define a collection – will complement the NAC fonds currently found at the archives, says Provencher.
He adds that her private donation differs greatly from the institution’s collection because it provides new insights from musicians, dancers, directors, government officials and more.
“I was always struck by how people could hardly wait for me to put on the microphone,” says Jennings. “They were so ready to tell their story.”
“It’s a fantastic resource,” NAC spokeswoman Rosemary Thompson says.
She adds that, historians, journalists and researchers will tell you “all the richness is in the first interview.”
Jennings has pleasant memories of these rich interviews, many of which she considers herself lucky to have gotten.
A few individuals, including Southam, who she describes as a “cultivated and cultured man,” fell ill and died before Jennings completed her book.
“He would tell me, ‘You just have to write faster my dear,’ ” Jennings says.
Jennings’ “great adventure” of interviewing prominent individuals working to shape the NAC and Canadian artistic culture is not finished just yet.
She will be conducting another round of interviews over the next few months.
She will be gathering raw material about the arts centre’s most recent decade and then adding it to her fonds at the archives.
These records, however, will sit under embargo for the next five years, being released during the NAC’s 50th anniversary of its founding.