Photo credit: Kirk Lisaj // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Jeremy Dutcher is thrilled to announce he will be performing at the JUNO Awards this year alongside Elisapie, on top of being a nominee in the Adult Contemporary Album of the Year category for his album Motewolonuwok. The TV broadcast will be live on Sunday, March 24 on CBC. Dutcher will also be participating in the JUNO Songwriters’ Circle on Friday March 22, a discussion amongst this year’s nominees to talk about the essence of music in its purest form: the song itself.
The classically trained Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, and member of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) in Eastern Canada is also sharing his CBC Live at Massey Hall concert today on CBC Gem. Filmed during his last performance in the sold-out venue last Fall in Toronto, the concert is now available. This series features artists such as The Beaches, Charlotte Cardin, Charlotte Day Wilson, July Talk, and more.
Before heading to the United States, Jeremy Dutcher will take part in Nuit blanche in Montreal on March 2 to give a unique concert part of the ICI Musique series Sur mesure démesuré, with special guest Safia Nolin. Join us in the Radio-Canada Hall at 11pm.
Dutcher originally vaulted himself into the upper echelons of Canadian performance with his 2018 debut, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa. Since winning the Polaris Music Prize, JUNO Award, performing for NPR Tiny Desk, and collaborating with Yo-Yo Ma and Beverly Glenn Copeland, in 2023 Dutcher returned with Motewolonuwok, a moving and radiant exploration of contemporary Indigeneity and his place within it, presenting his most expansive work yet. The new album also marked Dutcher’s first time writing and singing in English. A powerful invitation for collective healing and understanding, “Shared tongue is a beautiful gift, with a complicated reason,” Dutcher explains. These new English songs are also a way of singing directly to the newcomer, or settler, in their own language — a direct line of communication that seeks to platform his community’s stories of healing, resilience, and emergence to all that may hear.
Motewolonuwok heaves with dynamic orchestration and the inherent drama of grand piano, recalling a long line of artists who have turned the classical establishment on its head to deliver compositions that are doubly ecstatic and modern — luminaries such as Julius Eastman, Perfume Genius, Arthur Russell, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and Merce Cunningham. More intimate and expansive than anything Dutcher has created before, Motewolonuwok hedges the line between storytelling and composition as both a transcendental protest record and an exploration of self. This is experimental pop as corrective medicine: a defiant, healing, and queer experience that fills any listener with power and wisdom.
PRAISE FOR MOTEWOLONUWOK
"After expanding the boundaries of sampling with the award-winning debut Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa – which built postclassical arrangements around archival wax-cylinder recordings of Dutcher’s ancestral music from the Wolastoqey Nation – the classically trained tenor’s own range expands on Motewolonuwok. With flickers of jazz and pop and the occasional full orchestra, the composer sings in both Wolastoqey and English, inviting listeners to “take my hand / walk with me.” The Globe and Mail, Best Albums of 2023
“There is revolution in this album… Motewolonuwok is about people rising up in the streets, about unity and community, about identity. Dutcher, who is a member of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation), shares an operatic timbre with Anohni, his songs transmitting a similar sense of spiritual commitment. There is real weight behind these songs, and Motewolonuwok carries it with sombre grace.” ★★★★ – MOJO
“Motewolonuwok” pulls from the sounds of renowned song carrier Maggie Paul, the flamboyant musicality of Jeff Buckley and the political sensibility of Nina Simone. Across 11 songs, Dutcher stares down the horrors of violence against Indigenous women and the suicide crisis, while drawing strength from the writings and music of his ancestors and peers."
The Toronto Star, Best Music of 2023
“A captivating set, with Dutcher’s extraordinary and expressive vocals underpinned by orchestral arrangements... Mesmerising, magical and often deeply moving.” ★★★★
- The Morning Star
“Jeremy Dutcher's follow up to his Polaris Music Prize-winning debut is a work equally stunning in its beauty and raw emotional power. Musically, Dutcher is a talent on the level of Sufjan Stevens, with operatic vocals comparable to the arresting, passionate artistry of ANOHNI. Motewolonuwok is a more expansive album than its landmark predecessor, with the Tobique First Nations composer choosing to express songs in both Maliseet-Passamaquoddy and English while also blending cultures with jazzier full-band arrangements. These arrangements complement a vital storytelling voice that's impossible to absorb without being brought to tears." Exclaim!, Best of 2023
“Dutcher yearns earnestly in a powerful voice that lands somewhere between Anohni and Curtis Stigers, doling out lush soul ballads, which deal with land sovereignty and queerness” - Uncut
"Motewolonuwok invites us into a larger, expanded world. Language revitalization is still at the core of Dutcher's work, continuing the goals of his Polaris Music Prize-winning debut, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, but Wolastoqey now shares space with English-language songs meant to speak more directly to non-Indigenous listeners. While Motewolonuwok doesn't shy away from the painful experiences of Indigenous peoples Dutcher's gentle approach — to "rise in beauty" and forge a path forward with grace — is a powerful beacon of hope during these dark, divisive times" CBC Music, Best Albums of 2023
“As powerful as his lyrics, though, is Dutcher’s performance style.” – Vogue
“[Jeremy Dutcher] Brings forward the spirit of his people on this beautiful record.” — NPR Music
"Motewolonuwok is a landscape of rolling hills, gullies, open horizons and bright stars. The Two-Spirit 2018 Polaris Music Prize winner composes this scene with an earthbound orchestra and populates it with 12-person choirs made up of his close friends. It’s a defiant, gorgeous, collective taking-up of sonic space, brought to an emotional fulcrum on “The Land That Holds Them.” RANGE Magazine, Best of 2023
“Richly orchestrated, his intimate walks unfold an intense dramaturgy to transcend the pain of oppression and express the soothing beauty of resilience”. - Télérama
JEREMY DUTCHER TOUR DATES:
March 16 2024 – Princeton, NJ – McCarter Theatre Center
March 19 2024 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
Match 20 2024 – New York City, NY – Lincoln Center
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