Member Since: 11/27/2006
Band Members: Almighty Voice - February 2008 Victoria, BC 'world premiere' of my work for wind symphony, composed with mentoring by Ian McDougall. Almighty Voice was a '21 year old Cree punk' who rose up against the Mounted Police in Assiniboia, now Saskatchewan, after he butchered a cow and was arrested. Listen for the two-step at the Police Ball in Regina, one evening in 1896, and the Regal salute suddenly played to halt the Ball and announce the men were needed 200 miles to the north. Listen to the cannons, firing 'very orderly' into the bluff of trees the next day where Almighty Voice was... existing. Listen for the 'night so quiet you could hear men breathe' only interrupted by a pack of coyotes. The percussion explosion/chime at the beginning and end is the sound of the metal shrapnel that killed Almighty Voice as it pierced his skull. The sounds in-between are the flash of life before his eyes as he passes away, six minutes of song is actually one quick moment as he has visions of the NWMP dance, the endless cannons and gunfire, his mother's disappointed song, and the song of his own eventual spiritual uprisising as he rejoins the ancestors. My deep respect to Almighty Voice's family at One Arrow First Nation.
nikamowin ayisk sihtoskawaw kohkôhô masinâsowin / Song in Support of the Spotted Owl - September 2007 Victoria, BC composition for "How Awesome Is This Place", a collaborative show with Patricia Kostek, clarinet. There are spoken parts of this song but I did not pronounce all of my Cree correctly, so I edited them out for now, sorry nêhiyawak. Enjoy the singing anyway both on clarinet and voice. Can you beleive there are only 17 Spotted Owls left in the Pacific Northwest?
Coyote Enters - April 2007 Vancouver, BC sound cue for the Full Circle: First Nations Performance Ensemble creation 'A Trickster's Tale'. This is my voice, dressed up with rattles and hand drum. Imagine a stage with serious preparations going on, only to be interrupted when Coyote enters swaggering, dressed up in jewelled leather shoes, purple velvet hat, Lakers jersey, a big Wrangler bling, and an all around 'Uh Oh Here He Comes' attitude.
Cree Call - August 2006 Fort Qu'Appelle, SK live and late at the Ross reunion in a big red barn among fiddlers and jiggers. Joining me are Nigel Taylor on trumpet and Ian Tulloch on tuba. A Métis/Cree revivalist soundscape and blues, inspired by Buffy Sainte-Marie's "isketayo sewow" from Native North American Child: An Odyssey recording 1974.
Influences: JJ Johnson, Ottorino Respighi, & Fraggle Rock
Sounds Like: a calliope sometimes
Record Label: kihewmaskwasis studio
Type of Label: Indie