Jeremy Dutcher

Jeremy Dutcher is a Toronto-based composer and vocal artist. An operatic tenor, Dutcher takes every opportunity to blend his Wolastoq First Nation roots into the music he creates. His style combines musical aesthetics into something entirely new, shapeshifting between classical, contemporary, traditional, and jazz.

His debut release Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (Our Maliseets Songs), slated for fall 2017, is part composition, part musical ethnography, part linguistic reclamation. The melodies come from the oldest known field recordings of the Indigenous peoples along the St. John (Wolastoq) River basin. Dutcher works with the endangered Wolastoqey language in his music in hopes of inspiring other young maliseets to learn it.

Dutcher won Opera New Brunswick’s Young Artist Award in 2012 and most recently received the Canada Council for the Arts Aboriginal Music Award. He studied classical music at Dalhousie University and spent time learning from Passamaqouddy song carrier Maggie Paul. He has also been a featured soloist with the Mississauga Chamber Choir and Soundstreams Canada. See him in The Famous Spiegeltent before his album release in the fall.