We have made the decision to merge the Music Roundup into the Arts Roundup. The final edition of the Music Roundup will be published on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2020 and starting the following week we’ll be including more music-related coverage in the Arts Roundup. All existing Music Roundup subscribers will automatically receive the Arts Roundup instead.
The Music Roundup has actually been a key part of our progress over the last two years, so we haven’t made this decision lightly.
The context
We launched the Music Roundup in July 2018 as our second roundup. It was an important step as it helped further validate the idea behind the roundups and provided another place for us to iterate.
The Music Roundup was originally curated by Sandra Sperounes, a veteran music writer who had a long career at the Edmonton Journal and then as an entertainment columnist on CBC Radio. It was an incredible opportunity for us to learn from her.
When Sandra moved on to new things, we brought Emily Rendell-Watson on board. In addition to her interest in music and curation/writing skills, Emily quickly made herself indispensable by taking on most of the editing work for our other roundups.
In August 2019, the Edmonton Arts Council supported our efforts to offer local arts coverage by launching the Arts Roundup, curated by Fawnda Mithrush. It made sense at the time to add a new roundup rather than rebrand the Music Roundup, even though we knew there’d be some overlap.
The decision
As they say, hindsight is 20/20. If we were starting fresh, we likely wouldn’t launch two separate roundups! We’d launch one that covers all aspects of local arts, including music, theatre, dance, visual arts, literary arts, and more. Having one roundup for all of our local arts coverage will help us concentrate our resources.
COVID-19 also contributed to this decision. Arts and entertainment have been significantly impacted by the pandemic, which has in turn affected our coverage. While we hope for a return to "normal" in the near future, we know that the current state of affairs will continue for quite some time. Our approach needs to adapt accordingly.
What’s next
We are still committed to helping Edmontonians better understand the local music scene, and we encourage musicians, venues, promoters, and everyone else in the industry to continue sending news and other updates to us at hello@taprootedmonton.ca.
If you’re not already a subscriber, please check out the Arts Roundup!
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