ON STAGE
What: Jeremy Dutcher with the Lekwungen Traditional Dancers of Songhees Nation
Where: Alix Goolden Performance Hall, 907 Pandora Ave.
When: Thursday, Oct. 24, 8 p.m. (doors at 7)
Tickets: Sold out
The way musician Jeremy Dutcher evaluates his success has more to do with future generations than awards and acclaim.
He’s certainly happy to have the latter, which includes a Polaris Music Prize win in 2018, a Juno Award win this year and volumes of flattering critical notices.
But the impact his groundbreaking amalgam of opera, classical music and First Nations history has had on Indigenous youth in Canada has been the most rewarding part of his career, Dutcher says.
“The fact it has gone outward, and that a lot of people have connected with the music, that’s positive,” Dutcher, 28, said during a recent tour stop in Vancouver. “That for me is not the intended purpose. Everyone is welcome to come and witness what is going on in my community and the kind of conversations we’re having, but for me, the gaze of the project is a direct conversation between me and my relations.”
Dutcher, a two-spirit Wolastoqiyik musician and member of the Algonquian-speaking Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick, is touring in support of his debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa.
The album turned a spotlight on archival recordings of traditional songs — songs Dutcher did not know even existed until he was told by a First Nations elder that Ottawa’s Canadian Museum of History housed wax cylinder phonograph recordings of songs sung by some of Dutcher’s ancestors.
He made it his mission to bring traditional Wolastoq songs back to life in a contemporary context, and incorporated samples of the original recordings on the album.
“People didn’t know about them. I didn’t know about them,” Dutcher said. “But I understood it was now my duty and responsibility to carry that back to my people. An album was the most accessible way for me to get that archive into the hands of my people, without physically taking our stuff back — which had crossed my mind.”
Dutcher said the album was a way to “rematriate” — rather than repatriate — that material back into the community.
The lyrics are sung in a language that fewer than 100 members of the Tobique First Nation have spoken fluently since birth.
His mother is in that group, but because of the language-shaming of the federal government’s Indian Act of 1876 — which, among other things, limited the expression of Indigenous art and culture — Dutcher said “she wasn’t equipped” to pass on the knowledge to him when he was growing up.
“It’s been a reclamation journey for myself to come back to that language,” he said.
“But I was fortunate. They spoke it around me. Hearing my grandmother and my mother speak it, that was a pretty unique position. I know that if I hadn’t had the parents I had, I wouldn’t know much about who I was.
“Much of it has been stopped, and a lot of the ways our knowledge has been passed on for thousands of years has been stopped.”
The artistic ripple effect his music has created is evident at his performances, Dutcher said. Fans who come to his shows “are interested in having these conversations” about reclamation, he said, and the project is working as he had hoped.
Indigenous youth across Canada have learned the songs, he said proudly — some have even choreographed dances to many of them. “There are all sorts of effects, which I’m very excited about. I had hoped to make our young people curious about who we are.”
Dutcher gave a sold-out performance for Pacific Opera Victoria last year, and his appearance at the Alix Goolden Performance Hall tonight, with an opening performance by the Lekwungen Traditional Dancers of Songhees Nation, sold out two weeks ago.
Which isn’t the least bit surprising: Concerts by the classically trained pianist and operatic tenor are largely unparalleled in Canada, and his performances with cellist Blanche Israel and percussionist Greg Harrison have met with widespread acclaim.
Dutcher will be riding higher than usual for tonight’s show. He was beaming Tuesday during our interview, full of hope after the historic win by his cousin, Jenica Atwin, during Monday’s federal election.
By winning her seat in the Fredericton riding where Dutcher was raised, Atwin became New Brunswick’s first Green party member of Parliament, gaining the party’s first seat outside of British Columbia.
His cousin’s win is a start. But the problems facing the country will remain deep-rooted until mindsets are changed, especially when it comes to Indigenous issues, Dutcher said.
“I was really disappointed to see during the debates that nobody had much else to say other than talking about pipelines. That was disappointing for me, as a young, Indigenous person.
“There’s so much need in the community, on so many different levels — housing, water, basic infrastructure. It’s a tragedy in 2019 that we can’t have living standards for all people in this country that are humane.”
He saw the historic win by Independent MP Jody Wilson-Raybould, a member of the We Wai Kai Nation, as a step in the right direction, however.
“It’s those kind of movers and shakers that will hold government accountable. Right now. It’s unacceptable what’s going on. I really hope we have reached the tipping point.
“I’m trying to urge people to think seven generations ahead, because we need that long-term thinking to get us out of the mess that we’re in.”
