We sat down with the one-of-a-kind modern talent to discuss language, legacy and liberation…
By Christopher Turner
Photos by Kirk Lisaj
This June, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is inviting guests to experience a fusion of musical genres as part of an exciting concert at Roy Thomson Hall, which is part of a major cultural partnership for Pride Toronto 2025. One of the artists will be Jeremy Dutcher, the indelible two-spirit artist, who will be joining in on Toronto’s Pride festivities as he celebrates National Indigenous Peoples Day with a concert on Saturday, June 21. Dutcher will be featuring music from his groundbreaking album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa and his newest album, Motewolonuwok.
There is simply no other artist anywhere in the world like Dutcher. Born in 1990 in a small, rural community near Fredericton, New Brunswick, Dutcher is a Wolastoqiyik member of Tobique First Nation (Neqotkuk). A classically trained operatic tenor and composer, Dutcher studied music and anthropology at Dalhousie University, where he began to intertwine his academic pursuits with his cultural roots singing in Wolastoquey, an endangered Indigenous language that has fewer than 100 fluent speakers in the world.
In 2018, after years of researching early 20th-century wax cylinder recordings of traditional Wolastoqiyik songs, many of which were at risk of being lost, Dutcher released his debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, a masterful fusion of archival recordings and contemporary classical arrangements. By integrating these ancestral voices with his own compositions, Dutcher not only helped preserve his community’s musical heritage but also brought it to a broader audience. His efforts and talent earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and the 2019 Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year.
Five years later, in 2023, Dutcher released his ambitious sophomore album, Motewolonuwok, which continued his exploration of Indigenous identity and language through music. Unlike his first album, this innovative collection features songs in both Wolastoqey and English, to bring non-Indigenous listeners more fully into the conversation, making Indigenous stories accessible to a wider audience. Dutcher’s evolution as an artist brought critical acclaim, and earned him a second Polaris Music Prize in 2024, making him the first artist to win twice in the award’s 19-year history.
Beyond his musical achievements, Dutcher is a passionate advocate for Indigenous rights, the revitalization of Indigenous languages, and queer representation. Identifying as two-spirit, he uses his platform to challenge colonial narratives and attacks on Indigenous Peoples, lands and resources, while also promoting inclusivity, especially in today’s sometimes hostile environment.
“We need to come together in spaces of art and beauty and joy, just because it’s the antidote to a lot of the stuff that’s going on right now,” Dutcher told IN when we sat down with him in anticipation of his upcoming performance with the TSO for Pride Month. Read on for more on what guests can expect from the performance, why it’s important for him to combine different musical traditions, what Pride means to him, and much more.
Let’s kick things off and talk about your upcoming performance with the TSO on Saturday, June 21.
I’m pretty stoked about this one. It’s going to be next level. It’s going to be the realization of many years of work trying to marry some very different styles of music together. Plus, I don’t know that they’ve had a whole show in an Indigenous language before.
What should the audience expect?
Oh my gosh! I try not to predict too much or, like, play in the realm of expectation, but, certainly, they should expect a look! [laughs] I love actually getting to be on stage and being able to highlight some amazing designers like Mic. Carter.… I’ve been bathing myself in his clothes for a couple of years now. We may work something up. I haven’t quite decided what direction I’m going, but I’m going to pull something together!
But for me, the concert hall experience is a really special one, because we’re all there to listen to music together. And in this moment, especially, we need opportunities where we can come together and gather around stories that are not our own and hear from the other side.
You really do have so many different stories to share.…
I’m really happy to be a representation, for a couple of different communities, and that feels like a celebration. Whether it’s having Indigenous language in that space or being a queer person on that stage…it’s equally important to me. Showing that and being visible, in this moment, in that classical space, is going to be fun. So I hope the audience is expecting a celebration, because it is our month.
How is performing with an orchestra different from your usual performance setups?
It’s a 180! I’m fortunate that I’m able to put my music into a couple of different spaces. I do a lot of solo piano shows, I do shows with a jazz band of improvisers. But they are all about storytelling, which ties them together. But the orchestra shows specifically are, let’s say, the least free, which, as an artist, I love a creative constraint. Having 70 musicians looking at you waiting for you to play the notes…is a little bit daunting, and definitely a different musical experience than I’m usually stepping into. But to be able to elevate and lift our songs and our languages with the orchestra, it feels like another level.
How does that feel?
When I was going to classical music school, what I saw reflected within the canon of who the great composers were and what they wrote about…when they did mention native people, it was always in a bit of a crooked way. I figured coming from that community and knowing how beautiful our music is, wouldn’t that be an exciting opportunity, and a challenge, to try to weave those together.
Is it important to you to combine different musical traditions?
It is. It’s also just where I find myself at the kind of intersection of the different music that I’ve been surrounded by my whole life. I was very, very fortunate that I was guided towards a mentor in our community, from a young age. Her name is Maggie Paul. She taught me a lot of our traditional songs and our language, which I’m able to take and blend. I think it’s an important expression.
Your TSO performance is scheduled during Pride Month and National Indigenous Peoples Day. What does ‘Pride’ mean to you?
Oh, wow. Yeah. I love that question, because it means something absolutely different to everyone. And even in those two cultural community contexts, it means something different to me as an Indigenous person and as a queer person. We sit as expressions of all these different intersections, and for me the idea of being proud or prideful sits in in different cultural contexts. So when I think about what Pride as a movement has been, pushing for queer dignity and space and expression in our society…I think that’s beautiful.
As a young queer person coming from a rural part of this country, coming to my first Pride parade was a super impactful experience. It really changed what queer possibility was for me. Today, I think that the fight can’t end with marriage equality, especially as we watch things play out all over the world. Now there needs to be more solidarity and more love towards each other, rather than division.
You identity as a two-spirit person. What does that pan-Indigenous term mean to you?
Two-spirit is an English word that came from a beautiful gathering that happened in Manitoba in the ’90s, and they said we need to specifically speak about experiences of Indigenous and queer people because that intersection is a distinct experience. So, it names something in that moment.
I came out pretty young, when I was 12, and I don’t know if this is something that I came up with or if it’s something that I heard, but it really stuck with me: the limits of our language are the limits of our minds. And so, when I came out as a young person, I came out as gay because that was the language I had access to at that time. It wasn’t until I moved away from home and got to meet other queer Indigenous people that I even heard the term to speak to it. Then I started to understand that there is this whole community of people that are celebrated at that intersection. So, for me, I think it’s a term that has built a lot of strength among our nations and between Indigenous Peoples. It also made a lot of non-Indigenous people curious about our gender systems, which in turn makes us curious about our gender system. I think we’re seeing a real interesting movement right now; I think to name and also to express in a way that honours all of our sides.
When we leap forward to today, it’s a term that’s very different from community to community and urban versus rural. There’s a real divide in terms of the place that queer Indigenous people hold in our community. I think it’s important that we name that.
Is it something you think a lot about?
Actually, my last record [Motewolonuwok], the title of it is the name for two-spirit people. So the title of the record is like a very magical being…and they’re kind of changing, transformation people.
But, back to two-spirit.… It’s also a limited term and it can classify something. We have this way in our society of trying to dichotomize gender and sexuality. And I think we lose a lot when we try to do that. Because it’s not so simple. And a term like two-spirit is acknowledging that intersection and complexity, and I think that’s really beautiful.
Can you talk more about Motewolonuwok and the original songs you created for that album?
Totally. With my first album, it was all in the Wolastoqey language, and I had this kind of success that I did not expect at all. My first album was very DIY. But a lot of non-Indigenous people and people who didn’t speak my language listened to it. After, I thought this is a real opportunity to speak to them. Speak to them in their language so they can understand you and hear our stories. So my second studio album was about trying to weave together English songs and also traditional songs and put them in conversation with each other.
It’s really about queer people. The album reflects on gender diversity and how multiplicitous we are. If you go and watch some of the music videos, there’s a song called ‘Take My Hand’ and we shot a music video with this amazing two-spirit elder named Gayle Pruden from Winnipeg. You know, putting our trans Elders onto the screen is a powerful moment. To see our beauty and our survival reflected into somebody who has lived it, is incredible.
You were the first artist in Polaris history to win the prize twice.
Yeah. That’s what they say! [laughs]. It’s a cool award, because it’s structured different from something like the Grammys. Right? It’s a panel of over 300 music journalists from across Canada who are selecting their favourite Canadian album released that year. It’s really open; there are no genre categories. It’s really just about people who listen to and write about and love music. It’s cool and it’s such an honour to be selected by people who really care about music. It’s not about sales or how many followers you have. It’s not about any of that. And, thank God, because I wouldn’t be considered if it were, you know, Shawn Mendes – he would win every year. I don’t do it for the awards, obviously, but to have the music community reflect and say we like what you’re doing, that’s a good feeling.
Last question. After your performance with the TSO, what’s next for you?
Oh, the most difficult question of all. Well, to be honest, right after, I’m hopping on a plane and going to Norway. I’ve been doing a lot of work up there with the Indigenous community in the north of Scandinavia. I’m going to be doing some writing and talking with some of their Knowledge Keepers and Elders up there. I’m also going to Japan on tour with my band in August.
Jeremy Dutcher will perform with the TSO on Saturday, June 21, at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. For more information or to buy tickets, visit TSO.CA/JeremyDutcher.
The TSO will also host a post-concert Summer Solstice Party on the Roy Thomson Hall Patio, which will feature a DJ, entertainment, cash bar, light snacks, and more. Tickets to the party are available as an add-on to the concert.
CHRISTOPHER TURNER is the editor of IN Magazine. He is a Toronto-based writer, editor and lifelong fashionisto with a passion for pop culture and sneakers. Follow him on social media at @Turnstylin.
POST A COMMENT