Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit, classically-trained tenor, composer, ethnomusicologist, performer and activist. He is a Wolastoqiyik member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick and currently lives in Montréal, Québec. He studied music and anthropology at Dalhousie University and, after training as an operatic tenor in the Western classical tradition, he expanded his professional repertoire to include the traditional singing style and songs of his community.
He recorded his debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa following a research project on archival recordings of traditional Maliseet songs at the Canadian Museum of History, many of which are no longer being passed down to contemporary Maliseet youth. Jeremy transcribed songs sung by his ancestors in 1907 and recorded onto wax cylinders, transforming them into “collaborative” compositions. The album earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards. His 2019 NPR Tiny Desk Concert has over 85,000 views.
In 2022, Jeremy and his family launched Kekhimin, the first-ever Wolastoqey language immersion school, in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
A powerful invitation for collective healing
His new album Motewolonuwok was released in October 2023 and marks Dutcher’s first time writing and singing in English. This album is a powerful invitation for collective healing and understanding. Making music is like learning a language, he says. It’s “an unfurling”—a constant exploration of what you want to say and how you can express it.
Motewolonuwok features Wolastoqey traditionals, poetry from by the Cherokee poet Qwo-li Driskill, and his new songs written in English. This is an acknowledgment of his father’s tongue, and also a way of singing “directly to the newcomer [settler],” in their own language, to tell his community’s stories of grief, resilience and emergence. “I needed to contextualize my own story,” he explains, and Motewolonuwok moves like a collective wish and a corrective medicine.
Jeremy’s music transcends boundaries: unapologetically playful in its incorporation of classical influences, full of reverence for the traditional songs of his home, and teeming with the urgency of modern-day resistance. On September 13, 2024, he’ll perform his beautiful new album accompanied by the NAC Orchestra in Southam Hall.
Editor’s note: Content for this article was adapted from the artist’s bio provided by their record label, Secret City.
