Mimi wants to know what is in your piano bench

Canadian ragtime pianist, Mimi Blais, is tackling possibly the toughest project of her life. She wants to compile a history of Canada’s part in the ragtime music craze that swept North America and Europe in the years between the late 1890s and the mid-1920s, which historians call the Ragtime Era.

Sponsored by the Canada Council for the Arts, Mimi hopes to create a directory of every piece of ragtime published in Canada between 1896 and 1917, which means asking everyone across the country to search through their piano benches and family collections.

She is looking for piano music that was ragtime, one-step or two-step marches or any syncopated piano music. At the end of her research, she will record the selection of her discoveries on one or more CDs.
"There is nowhere right now where you can go to find out what was published in Canada as ragtime music during the ragtime era," she says. "My hope is to bring that all together as a source that can be used by other pianists, music conservatories and scholars."

Mimi is being assisted in her project by Jack Hutton, a Bala, Ontario, ragtime pianist/historian. He was involved with the Toronto-based Ragtime Society as a performer and editor for more than a quarter of a century.

She says it surprises many people when they learn that Canadians were writing ragtime at the same time that Scott Joplin, the famous ragtime composer, was creating his masterpieces in the U.S. In 1899, the same year that Joplin published "The Maple Leaf Rag", two Canadians published their own ragtime compositions. 

Blais is hoping to hear from people all across Canada and in the USA in the coming months. They can write to her at: PO Box 222/NDG. Montreal QC Canada H4A 3P5 or email her at: mimi@mimiblais.com 

Hutton can be reached at : Box 14, Bala, ON Canada P0C 1A0 or through email at: balamus@muskoka.com

Posted 10/20/05