KURATED NO. 244
VANCOUVER FOLK
MUSIC FESTIVAL 48
Featured Act
• Cris Derksen – Electro and Classical Cellist
CONTENTS
- PLAYLIST The Cusp on Spotify and YouTube
- FESTIVAL 48 43-song sampler curated by Artistic Director Fiona Black
- VIDEO ONE SONG Pow.Wow.Wow
- VIDEO PERFORMANCE War Cry with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (10:27 mins)
- ABOUT THE FESTIVAL see below
Indigenous and two-spirit cello virtuoso Cris Derksen (Tanja -Tiziana Photo)
Vancouver Folk Music Festival 48
CANADIAN CELLIST CRIS DERKSEN
Fusing electronic cello with classic orchestral sounds while drawing on Indigenous music and other genres
“I often feel like I am a jeweller,” says Indigenous cellist Cris Derksen. “I take little bits and pieces of things that I know and love, like a crow collecting shiny things, and braid them together to make them a piece that only I can make.”
Those bits and pieces find their place in an exciting sonic ecology centred on her innovative cello work. Veering from pure classical play to surprising electronic explorations, Derksen draws on her Cree background to weave sounds from varied traditions and genres into her compositions. For example, her boundary pushing 2015 album Orchestral Powwow features Indigenous singing blending with the assured strokes of her cello’s chamber music stylings.
“I’m always coming from the perspective of an Indigenous person,” she told the Calgary Herald in March. “It’s always in my work because it is my perspective. I’m half Cree, half Mennonite and I understand our history very well, the dichotomy of the settler-Indigenous relationship, because that is me. It’s all within me.”
Classically trained since childhood, Derksen is renowned nationally and internationally for wideranging work. Her eclectic musical interests – classical, hip hop, Indigenous, and electronic among them – were cultivated in part during her studies at UBC where she earned a Bachelor of Music. Her significant body of work counts numerous projects – recorded work, commissions for symphonies, choirs, theatre, TV and film scores, a children’s festival and more.
Playing at Carnegie Hall
A recent highlight was her 2024 debut performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall where she presented Controlled Burn with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal which commissioned the piece under Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2023. The music emulates the sounds of fire recalling how Indigenous people managed wildfires by burning debris from the forest floor. The practice was outlawed when Canada became a nation. Government saw the economic value of trees while failing to understand the ecological wisdom of managing the forests for ongoing harvests.
“Our relationship to fire has changed, ” Derksen told the Calgary Herald. “It would be a community event with kids and aunties. It was safe. It was a joyful event. Now, obviously when we think of fires, it’s a much different thing.”
She has shaped Controlled Burn to reflect the climate crisis. Along with the crackle of burning “… we hear the sounds of the helicopters and we hear the sounds of the water bombers,” Derksen says. “That changes the actual sound of fire … so that plays into the piece …”.
Origins and career
Derksen identifies as two-spirit and launched her performing career in 2006 playing with Canadian Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq. It’s there that she first started experimenting with electronics, loops and beats. She was born in Treaty 8 territory in Northern Alberta and went to school in Edmonton. There she had ample choice to experiment in the school’s string program.
She studied music at the University of Alberta before moving to the University of British Columbia.
In 2009 Derksen was the curator-in-residence at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. She is an award-winning artist as well as a 2016 Juno Award Nominee, for Instrumental Album of the Year for Orchestral Powwow. Currently she’s an artistic advisor for the Calgary Phil and since 2019 has led the Classical Indigenous Music Residency at the Banff Centre. She is also a composer in residence for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Derksen first played the festival circuit in around 2006. Her musical journey has taken her around the world playing to audiences including Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Czech Republic, Mexico, Sweden and the United States. She has played with a wide range of artists including Buffy Sainte-Marie, Kanye West, Kinnie Starr, Rae Spoon, her wife Rebecca Benson and traditional powwow groups.
This summer’s appearance will be her fifth at the Vancouver Folk Music Festival. In her 2006 appearance Xtra West magazine called her “A humbly punk cellist”. After almost 20 years at her trade, all three descriptions firmly stand. However she has grown immeasurably becoming worthy of many more praises. Come listen! Hear Cris Derksen for yourself.
03 May 2025
About Festival 48
WHEN
The 48th Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival runs from July 18 to 20
TICKETS
Early Bird tickets are available and you can purchase them at The Festival
HEAR
Listen to excellent 43-song Festival sampler curated by artistic director Fiona Black
VIEW
The full artist line-up
