Jeremy Dutcher

Jeremy Dutcher is a Canadian performer, composer, activist and musicologist, and a member of Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick. In his career, he has consistently merged the old and the new, the historical and the contemporary, in bold compositions and melodies. By reimagining the traditional songs of his Wolastoq First Nation ancestors, Mr. Dutcher has revived past stories and is keeping the Wolastoqey language alive.

Mr. Dutcher studied music and anthropology at Dalhousie University in Halifax. After graduating, he had the opportunity to work in the archives at the Canadian Museum of History, transcribing Wolastoq songs from century-old wax cylinders. Inspired by his ancestor’s recordings from 1907–14, Mr. Dutcher recorded his debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, which he released in April 2018 at the age of 27. In this album, he creatively uses archival material to create a vibrant contemporary work that is sung entirely in Wolastoqey.

In 2018, the Polaris Grand Jury deemed Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa to be the best Canadian album of the year and awarded Mr. Dutcher the Polaris Music Prize. The following year, at the 2019 Juno Awards, Mr. Dutcher won the Juno Award for Indigenous Music Album of the Year.