Classically trained operatic tenor and pianist Jeremy Dutcher recently won the Polaris Music Prize (Canada’s equivalent of the Mercury Prize) for Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, an album of songs sung in his native Wolastoq dialect. Wolastoq is a dying language, spoken by only one hundred people within his First Nation community, but Dutcher was inspired by a “song carrier” to seek out his people’s ancient songs and breathe new life into them. The result is a post-classical recording of stunning beauty. “I was sitting around elder Maggie Paul’s kitchen table, having this discussion about the musical life of our community,” recalls Dutcher, a member of the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick wh...
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