When Lisa MacIsaac was making a name for herself as a fiddler and singer in Creignish, Cape Breton, she was used to being the only woman in the folk bands she played with. That extended to festival lineups, where the JUNO-nominated artist found herself in concert rooms and on stages with very few faces that looked like hers.
“I saw it a lot growing up,” MacIsaac says, speaking by phone with The Coast. “A lot of the time, it would be all men, and then a female fiddle player. That was the norm.”
Even when she moved to Toronto and formed the folk-pop duo Madison Violet with Brenley MacEachern in the 1990s, the two found it challenging to book gigs when other female-led acts were already on the showbill. There was an unspoken perception, it seemed, within the music industry: There was only enough room for one woman at a time.
“That was a real eye opener,” she recalls. “I think now, people realize that’s a ridiculous thought process.”
Still, industry habits die hard. A 2018 Pitchfork review of 20 of the year’s biggest multi-genre festival lineups found that of the nearly 1,000 artists booked to perform at those festivals, less than a third were women or had women in the band. (The review did not track inclusion of non-binary artists, but a separate—and bigger—survey of 833 festivals between 2012 and 2021 found less than 1 percent of artists polled identified as non-binary.)
Together with Jamie Whitty, executive director of the not-for-profit Nova Scotia Arts Factory, MacIsaac wants to put that industry bias to rest. She’s organizing a 10-date East Coast concert series featuring all women and non-binary artists, starting with a show at The Stage at St. Andrew’s this Sunday, Nov. 19. Both singer/producer Erin Costelo and folk singer-songwriter Catherine MacLellan will join her.
The idea, MacIsaac says, was partially born out of an artists’ group she joined during the isolated days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Every two weeks over Zoom, she and MacEachern would join a who’s who of Canadian talent to connect with each other and lend support. The Good Lovelies were there. Jill Barber. Costelo and MacLellan, too.
“I think by the end of it, there were maybe 20-25 of us that would meet. We did it for a year,” MacIsaac tells The Coast.
“We were all at different places in our lives, but we understood the challenges of not being able to work, and being at home, and not being able to just be out there creatively… It was a gift. It got me—and I think a lot of my fellow artists—through the pandemic. We developed this community of support that was so needed,” she adds. “I think being a part of that collective of strong female and non-binary artists, it made me realize that there is a support between us that is unmatched. And I think that’s what we’re trying to do with this concert series.”
MacIsaac has plans for shows in Liverpool, Truro and Fredericton, among other locales, starting in February 2024 and continuing through the summer. She’ll perform at each and has a list of younger or less-platformed artists she wants to bring on-stage to show their talent.
“We want to give opportunities, and this is our way to give those local up-and-coming artists that,” she says.
The initial plan had been for MacEachern to join for the concert series as well, but unfortunate circumstances intervened: The singer-songwriter’s mother passed suddenly. The two agreed that MacIsaac would carry on in MacEachern’s stead.
She and Whitty have also filed for a not-for-profit designation. There are plans to partner with “some mental health charities,” MacIsaac says.
Sunday’s show at The Stage at St. Andrew’s (6036 Coburg Road) starts at 7:30pm. Tickets are $67.36. Show-goers with an ACCESS2 card can get one additional free ticket.
