Toronto’s Market Gallery is hosting an exhibit, through Oct. 15 celebrating the 50th anniversary of one of Canada’s great music festivals.

From the press release:

“Mariposa: fifty years of making music” documents five decades of one of Canada’s oldest and best known music festivals through historical photographs, festival programs, and sound recordings. Materials featured in this exhibit are taken from the Mariposa Folk Foundation’s extensive archives, which were donated to York University’s Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections in 2007.

“Mariposa: fifty years of making music” will also document the origins of the festival in Orillia and the folk revival movement of the 1960s, as well as exploring the range of venue changes, culture clashes and the remarkable continuity that allows the festival to endure and to be relevant today.

Music is at the core of this exhibit but other facets of folk culture like traditional dance, craftwork, and storytelling will also be highlighted. The importance of the First Nations community and children’s programming in the history of the festival will also be emphasized, particularly as it relates to the successful MITS (Mariposa In The Schools) program.

The Mariposa Folk Festival has been described as “a state of mind somewhere between backwoods fiddling and B.B. King”. While the festival has hosted the likes of Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Bob Dylan, it has also fostered the talents of many up-and-coming Canadian artists, and many vibrant North American folk and indigenous music performers.

 The gallery is located on the second floor of South St. Lawrence Market, 95 Front St. E. Admission is free. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Friday: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Sunday, Monday and public holidays. More information is available at http://www.toronto.ca/culture/the_market_gallery.htm