Polaris and Juno Prize-Winner Jeremy Dutcher’s First New Song In Five Years Out Today

Watch/Listen To “Skicinuwihkuk” (Secret City Records) Here: https://found.ee/skicinuwihkuk-video   

Inspired by Song of His Wolastoqey Ancestors About Land Sovereignty

“There is no one making music like this” - NPR Music

Skicinuwihkuk  ᔅᑭᒋᓄᐧᐃᐦᑯᒃ - Ski-gin-oo-wee-gook

A statement of sovereignty. For those yet to come.

A sonic expansion of what has come before.

May 24, 2023 - Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, and ethnomusicologist from Tobique First Nation in Eastern Canada. Dutcher’s 2018 debut — Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa — vaulted him into the upper echelons of Canadian performance, from the Polaris and Juno Award stages to the judges’ panel on Canada’s Drag Race.  It led to collaborations with Yo-Yo Ma, Buffy St. Marie and Beverly Glenn Copeland, and an NPR Tiny Desk performance.  Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa began as a museum research project, exploring wax cylinder recordings of Wolastoqiyik song-carriers — Dutcher’s ancestors. The musician duetted with those voices, singing back to his community in Wolastoq — a language that fewer than 100 people still speak.  The reimagined songs dramatically capture the beauty of the Indigenous community’s resilience to pain and trauma. 

Today, Dutcher — a classically trained opera tenor and pianist that has been singing the songs of his ancestors since he was a child — returns with his first new solo work since 2018, with “Skicinuwihkuk,” released on his new label home of Secret City Records.  Dutcher will also share the new single via a KEXP session that is posting tomorrow morning, and has announced a major fall Canadian tour. 

Listen to “Skicinuwihkuk” / watch the video here: 

https://found.ee/skicinuwihkuk-video

https://found.ee/Skicinuwihkuk  

“Skicinuwihkuk” is a powerful, soaring work, Dutcher singing at the piano with a full orchestra (arrangements by Owen Pallet).  “Skicinuwihkuk” translates to "Indian Land" and the song is about land sovereignty, one of many crucial topics that Dutcher intends to spark a wider conversation on through his art.  

The song’s melody was inspired by a wax cylinder recording that he heard while researching his debut album.  The lyrics were inspired by field notes that Dutcher came across, made by the Anthropologist that had originally collected the songs.  The additional voice heard at the beginning and end of the song is Solomon Polchies from Sitansisk First Nation, recorded in 1963, part of the Wolastoq Archive at the Canadian Museum of History.  

A note on “Two-Spirit” identity: Two-Spirit is a pan-indigenous term to discuss the interrelated and intersecting identities of gender, sexuality and culture for those who may otherwise be identified as both LGBTQ+ and indigenous. This term is being reclaimed and expanded to incorporate localized understandings in our own languages. 

Lyrics:

mecimiw naka askomiw 

skicinuwihkuk 

tan qiniw iyuwok wasis kpomawsuwinuwok 

‘tankeyutomon-oc kihtahkomikomon. 

skicinuwihkuk

Translation:

always and forever

this is indian land 

as long as there is a child among our people 

we will protect the land 

indian land

Jeremy Dutcher tour dates:

October 19 - wei wai kum - Campbell River, BC - Tidemark Theater 

October 20 - lək̓ʷəŋən - Victoria, BC - McPherson Playhouse

October 21 - xʷməθkʷəy̓əm-Sḵwx̱wú7mesh-səlilwətaɬ - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre

October 23 - moh’kinsstis - Calgary, AB - Bella Concert Halal 

October 24 - amiskwaciwâskahikan - Edmonton, AB - Winspear 

October 26 - misâskwatômina - Saskatoon, SK - TCU Place 

October 27 - oskana ka-asastēki - Regina, SK - University of Regina Theatre

October 28 - wînipêk - Winnipeg, MB - Burton Cummings Theatre 

November 8 - odàwàg - Ottawa, ON - National Arts Centre 

November 10 - tiohtià:ke - Montreal, QC - Corona Theatre 

November 11 - kepek - Quebec City, QC - Grand Théâtre de Québec

November 14 - wasokusegwom - Glace Bay, NS - Savoy Theatre 

November 15 - epekwitk - Charlottetown, PE - Confederation Centre 

November 17 - eqpahak - Fredericton, NB - Playhouse 

November 18 - menahkwesk - St. John, NB - Imperial Theatre 

November 19 - petkoatkwee'ak - Moncton, MB - Capitol Theatre 

November 22 - kjipuktuk - Halifax, NS - St. Matthews 

November 23 - mtaban - Wolfville, NS - Festival Theatre at Acadia 

November 24 - kespukwik - Annapolis Royal, NS - Kings Theatre 

November 26 - ktaqmkuk - St. John’s, NL - St. John’s Arts & Culture Centre 

December 7 - haudenosaunee-anishinabewaki - St. Catherine’s, ON - FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre

December 9 - tkaronto - Toronto, ON - Massey Hall