Brent Oliver has impacted the music community of Edmonton and Western Canada in a number of ways. On top of a busy full-time job as Director of Culture with The City of Spruce Grove, and a growing family of five, Brent finds time to give back to the music & arts community in Canada.

Brent is Vice-Chair for Alberta Music, and sat as it’s head of its Community Engagement Committee throughout 2015. Furthermore, Brent is the Artistic Director of the UP+DT Music and Arts Festival, a multi-venue, multi-discipline festival in downtown Edmonton attracting over 100 touring artists to perform over the Thanksgiving weekend, entering its 5th year in 2017. Brent was a committee member and ambassador for the 25th-anniversary showcases for Edmonton and Nashville’s Sister Cities Celebration in August of 2015. Brent was a founding committee member of the Edmonton Live Music Initiative, a project geared on saving local venues in Edmonton from extinction. In 2016, Brent assisted in raising over $15,000 for the Red Cross to benefit the displaced residents of Fort McMurray following the wildfires in May.

He currently sits on the board for the Creative Cities Network of Canada, the 2017 Breakout West Host Committee and is the 2017 Chair for the Rogers’ Hometown Hockey event in Spruce Grove. Brent has been nominated for a Community Excellence Award by the Western Canadian Music Alliance at Breakout West in 2016 & 2017, the John Poole award for promotions of the arts at the Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts in 2015 & 2017 and was named a Top 40 under 40 by Avenue Magazine.

Brent has spoken at a number of industry events and panels regarding community engagement through arts & culture, best practice for touring and career development for musicians, along with cultural strategic planning and placemaking. Brent continues to give his knowledge on provincial and national music juries, cultural industries consultations with the Alberta Government and consultation to a number of Western Canadian arts administrators and artists.