For the final event in its 2016-17 season, Public Energy is presenting an intimate evening of music called “Songs in the Key of Cree” featuring Cree-Canadian icon Tomson Highway. The concert takes place at 8 p.m. on Thursday, May 11th at the Market Hall Performing Arts Centre in Peterborough.
Highway will be joined on stage by Peruvian/Canadian singer Patricia Cano and Toronto jazz saxophonist Marcus Ali.
This event, a fundraiser to benefit Public Energy’s performing arts programs, is only one of two Canadian performances of “Songs in the Key of Cree”, which Highway has been touring across seven countries in Europe.
A full-blood Cree, Highway is one of Canada’s greatest playwrights, best known for his plays The Rez Sisters and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing, each of which won both Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Floyd S. Chalmers Award.
Peterborough audiences may recall that the O’Kaadenigan Wiingashk Collective, with the assistance of Public Energy, staged The Rez Sisters in Peterborough in 2009, as well as Highway’s musical play The (Post) Mistress in 2012.
It was in the Peterborough production of The (Post) Mistress at the Market Hall where Highway first teamed up with Cano and Ali, who are touring with him in “Songs in the Key of Cree”.
As well as being a celebrated playwright and an author, Highway is also an accomplished composer, songwriter, and pianist. “Songs in the Key of Cree” is a compilation of songs Highway has written over the past 30 years from five of his musicals: Rose; The Incredible Adventures of Mary Jane Mosquito; The (Post) Mistress; The Sage, the Dancer, and the Fool; and a new work-in-progress as yet to be named.
Highway’s music is influenced by country, Brazilian samba, jazz, and French Canadian folk songs, but what makes his songs so unique is the use of his mother tongue Cree in their lyrics.
The names of many familiar Canadian provinces and cities are Cree (for example, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Chicoutimi, Quebec, and Ottawa) and it remains the most-spoken native language in Canada today. It’s a very rhythmic language that naturally lends itself to music and music-making.
“English is so hierarchical,” Highway explains. “In Cree, we don’t have animate-inanimate comparisons between things. Animals have souls that are equal to ours. Rocks have souls. Trees have souls. Trees are ‘who,’ not ‘what.'”
In “Songs in the Key of Cree”, presented by Public Energy and TD Canada Trust with supporting sponsor Trent University Indigenous Studies Program, Highway performs on piano with vocals by Cano and sax by Ali. Cano will sing the tri-lingual Highway’s songs in Cree, English, and French.
General admission tickets are $40 plus fees, available from the box office at Market Hall Performing Arts Centre (140 Charlotte St., Peterborough), by phone at 705-749-1146, or online at the Market Hall Box Office or online at www.markethall.org.
VIP tickets are also available for $100 plus fees and include assigned cabaret-style table seating and a meet-and-greet reception with Highway before the concert from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The reception features locally sourced Indigenous cuisine from Grandfather’s Kitchen, a wine list developed by Christopher Wilton, and a talk by Highway on the topic “The Birth and Development of ‘Native Showbiz’.” All VIP ticket holders also receive a $50 charitable tax receipt to recognize their donation to Public Energy.
For more information about “Songs in the Key of Cree” and Public Energy, visit publicenergy.ca.
