AUPE is proud to present an online concert of song and solidarity featuring the amazing Maria Dunn. Best known for her album Piece by Piece about the women who organized the GWG plant in Edmonton, Dunn will perform live from her home to yours by web video on May 12, 7 – 8:15 pm, and take questions from the audience after.
If you’ve never seen Maria Dunn perform or heard her beautiful songs about the struggle for justice, watch her classic Piece by Piece performance here.
To join the concert on May 12, click here: https://aupe-org.zoom.us/j/94082230132?pwd=M1NROTBCaTV5c05lQjhubURLaUkwUT09
“I’m looking forward to this,” says Dunn. “The focus of my concerts whether they’re at a folk club or for a labour organization is always on the storytelling and in this case, definitely worker history. With sharing the stories and songs of workers, I’m hoping to leave people with a sense of pride of our history and hope for what collective action can do and bring in terms of solidarity.”
Maria Dunn is an Edmonton based two-time Juno nominated folk singer and is often compared to Woody Guthrie for her keen social awareness and her melodic, unvarnished songs about the lives of working people. Dunn has been a long supporter of the Alberta labour movement and chronicler of its history. Penguin Eggs Magazine noted that Dunn remains one of the few songwriters in Canada to document the lives of ordinary working people.
Every album in Dunn’s history has at least one or two songs about labour, from the 1986 Gainers Strike in her most recent release Joyful Banner Blazing (2021) to a 1932 Hunger March on the Legislature in Edmonton in her second album, We Were Good People (2004). Her 2012 release Piece by Piece was an entire album of songs celebrating the resilience and grace of immigrant women working at Edmonton’s Great Western Garment factory over its 93-year history.
One of her newest yet unreleased songs is specific to the working conditions in the Cargill Packing Plant in High River during the pandemic. But Dunn says the tone and heart of the song is sure to hit home to AUPE members.
“AUPE has workers in all these different areas that are on the frontlines, in vulnerable positions in terms of health and safety,” she says, adding she was much inspired by the events and actions of AUPE members on October 26, 2020. “Their courage was very important and very inspiring in calling attention to the crisis. And this government’s intention to contract out and privatize, it’s very upsetting.”
Though the pandemic has forced artists like Dunn to evolve to do home-based online shows, she has found something exciting about this new format of performance. “The beauty of the virtual online concert is the enjoyment of singing along loudly, while on mute,” she says with a laugh. “Which you can’t do in a public sphere because if you sing along too loudly and don’t know all the words or sing off key, people will look askance. But if you’re in your own home and on mute, you can happily do that, and I will encourage that.”
For more information on Maria Dunn or to purchase some of her music prior to her May 12th performance, visit her website at https://www.mariadunn.com/