“We are all one” — A greeting from Marion Newman for Indigenous Peoples Month and Day

[Ken Gray] As I continue my own healing and reconciliation journey both in church and in community I was so pleased to stumble across a Facebook post from critically acclaimed and award-winning mezzo-soprano Marian Newman. As I preside today at an Anglican service here in Summerland honouring Indigenous Peoples Day I will share some of her story including a recent operatic performance. She describes the music in these words:

From a 2021 concert at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts (UBC), one of my favourite arias from Shanawdithit, an opera by the wonderful Yvette Nolan and Dean Burry.

If you catch the entire short video on YouTube, you will see the rest of the ensemble joins me in circle for an improvisation based on the concept of All My Relations. We each sing/play in Indigenous languages from across this land. Phrases meaning “we are all one”, like Namwayut in Kwakwala.

Realizing that so many cultures across this land have long understood and honoured the concept of Namwayut was like a lightning bolt for me. When we understand that we are part of the land, the air, the water, the spiritual realm and that all of these are connected, we are in true harmony. It was a labour of love alllllll the way to be in harmony with these friends during our concert at the Chan and to share that with our live audience.

If you don’t already know of Marian and her work here is a biography posted on the UVIC website:

Critically acclaimed and award-winning mezzo-soprano Marion Newman is Kwagiulth and Stó:lō First Nations with English, Irish and Scottish heritage. Marion was born in Bella Coola and grew up in Sooke, BC, immersed in and embraced by her community and culture. She is one of Canada’s most accomplished singers in repertoire ranging from Charpentier to Cusson and operatic roles, including Carmen and Rosina in The Barber of Seville. Nominated for a Dora Award for her leading role in the world premiere of Shanawdithit (Nolan/Burry) with Toronto’s Tapestry Opera, Ian Ritchie wrote, “She invests her character with towering dignity and courage.”

Marion portrayed Dr. Wilson in the premiere of Missing (Clements/Current) with Vancouver City Opera/Pacific Opera Victoria, which gives voice, in English and Gitxsanimaax, to the story of Canada’s missing and murdered Indigenous women. In March 2023 Marion reprised her role for her debut with Anchorage Opera. Highlights for the 2022/23 season included Cantaloube’s Chants d’Auvergne and a new work by Jennifer Butler with Vancouver Island Symphony, Bruckner’s Te Deum and the world premiere of Stephanie Martin’s Water, with Grand Philharmonic Choir and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and continued development of Namwayut, an Indigenous-led cooperative opera with the support of Calgary Opera. Recent guest appearances included Mozart’s Requiem, a digital co-production with Canadian Opera Company and Against the Grain Theatre, and Five Songs on Poem’s of Marilyn Dumont (Cusson) with the New Orford String Quartet for Cecilia Concerts in Halifax.

Marion has performed several works written specifically for her, including a Canada-wide tour of Ancestral Voices (Tovey) with the Vancouver Symphony and Nuyamł-ił Kulhulmx – Singing the Earth (Höstman/Robinson) with the Victoria and Vancouver Symphonies and Continuum Concerts in Toronto. Upcoming new works include the role of Mimi in Indians on Vacation, an operatic adaptation of the novel by Thomas King (Cusson/Vavrek) with Against the Grain Theatre. Marion created the role of Dawn with the Welsh National Opera in the July 2022 world premiere of Migrations (Todd), with stories by six writers based on their personal experiences of migrations and working with refugees. Also with Welsh National Opera, Marion starred in the premiere of The Shoemaker, a fusion of Latin American, Persian and Western classical musical influences, and she performed in Migrations Autumn 2022 UK tour.

Through commitment to authenticity, both in storytelling across the operatic canon and her approach to every role she inhabits, Marion has emerged as one of the most important artists working in Canada today. A driving force for truth and reconciliation within the context of classical music, she is helping lead colleagues and audiences through long overdue discussions about the very nature of what it means to call something “Canadian music”.

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