MUSIC: JEREMY DUTCHER
Where: Farquhar Auditorium, 3800 Finnerty Rd., University of Victoria
When: Friday, Sept. 9, 7 p.m.
Tickets: $30-$59 from tickets.uvic.ca or 250-721-8480
Jeremy Dutcher may carry a cellphone linked to the Toronto area code, but saying he lives in the city would technically be incorrect.
The acclaimed Wolastoqiyik musician and member of the Algonquian-speaking Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick recently returned to the road for a string of Western Canadian dates, so he’s more comfortable saying he lives out of a suitcase at present.
“I’m very lucky and happy to share music with people,” Dutcher said Wednesday, during a Nelson tour stop.
“This is what I want to do. But you also sacrifice a lot — like having a home in one place. It’s simple stuff, which is maybe not too much to ask for in life. But in the way that I live, it is not afforded to me.”
It has been a year of unique and interesting opportunities for the Juno Award winner, with many more to come.
Dutcher, 31, arrives in Victoria this week for a concert and talk connected to Voices in Circle: Amplifying Indigenous Cultural Voices, a series of concerts and speaking engagements focused on Indigenous music and art at the University of Victoria that gets underway Friday.
The series runs through next year and features PIQSIQ (Oct. 12), Snotty Nose Rez Kids (Nov. 30), a collection of local Indigenous artists (February), and Sebastian Gaskin (March 11). Tomorrow afternoon, prior to his performance at the Farquhar Auditorium, Dutcher will also participate in the discussion forum Art, Truth and Memory, featuring representatives from UVic and Voices in Circle organizers.
Dutcher said he’s grateful for the opportunity to collaborate, and hopes that by doing so helps move the conversation of truth and reconciliation forward.
“What I’m doing right now was not even possible one generation ago,” he said. “People weren’t even listening. Take it back two generations, and this would have been illegal. It humbles me all the time.”
Dutcher has been involved with a variety of projects in recent months, from an appearance in Carry It On, a new documentary about Buffy Sainte-Marie that is premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival (“It’s her world, we’re just living in it,” Dutcher said of the Academy Award winner) to a glitzy turn in June as a guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race reality TV series.
The latter, Dutcher said, was “a surreal experience.” He’s been confronted with a few of those since the release of his 2018 debut, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, an album based on wax cylinder phonograph recordings of songs sung by some of his ancestors. The Juno Award-winning album eventually won the Polaris Music Prize, positioning Dutcher as one of the top new artists in the country.
“My first record had this life that I really didn’t plan for or expect,” he said. “I’m trying to ride it and be grateful about it.”
Dutcher said he’s been looking at his career in a new light in recent months. As someone who has been given both a microphone and platform, the classically trained operatic tenor and composer is attempting to unify opera, classical music and First Nations history into something much bigger and profound.
“Buffy Sainte-Marie talks about ripening. I really love that language, because it is something we’re all doing all the time. The berry or the flower doesn’t really care how it’s ripening, it’s just happy to be growing.”
