Jeremy Dutcher
Jeremy Dutcher is a Two-Spirit song carrier, composer, activist, ethnomusicologist and classically-trained vocalist from New Brunswick, Canada who currently lives in Montréal, Québec. A Wolastoqiyik member of Neqotkuk (Tobique First Nation) in North-West New Brunswick, Jeremy is best known for his debut album, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa (The Songs of the People of the Beautiful River), recorded following a research project on archival recordings of traditional Wolastoqiyik songs at the Canadian Museum of History. Jeremy transcribed songs sung by his ancestors in 1907 and recorded onto wax cylinders, transforming them into “collaborative” compositions. The album earned him the 2018 Polaris Music Prize and Indigenous Music Album of the Year at the 2019 JUNO Awards. His 2019 NPR Tiny Desk Concert has over 95,000 views.
Jeremy studied music and anthropology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After training as an operatic tenor in the Western classical tradition, he expanded his professional repertoire to include the traditional singing style and songs of his community. Jeremy’s music transcends boundaries: unapologetically playful in its incorporation of classical influences, full of reverence for the traditional songs of his home, and teeming with the urgency of modern-day resistance.
Jeremy has toured the world, from Australia and Norway to Italy and the Philippines. He has worked with and performed for iconic artists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell, and Beverly Glenn Copeland. Jeremy is regularly sought out for his perspectives on queerness, Indigeneity, language revitalization, and fashion, including a 2022 appearance as a guest judge on Canada’s Drag Race, and a 2023 feature in Vogue. In 2022, Jeremy and his family launched Kekhimin, the first ever Wolastoqey language immersion school, in Fredericton New Brunswick.
Charm of Finches
Australian sister duo Charm of Finches delivers intricate folk-pop that is simultaneously graceful and darkly bewitching. Their seamless blood harmonies traverse melancholy and wonder in equal measure.
The sisters, Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, released their third full length album Wonderful Oblivion in 2021 through New York-based label AntiFragile Music to critical acclaim. They have since toured extensively through the UK, Europe and Canada in 2022/23.
Winners of the Australian Folk Music Awards Best Folk Album (2022) and Music Victoria Best Contemporary Folk Act (2021), their music has been nominated twice for the prestigious Australian Music Prize.
In February 2023 the sisters spent a month in rural Nova Scotia recording with acclaimed Canadian producer Daniel Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Oh Pep!), inspired by the frozen beauty of the landscape and their transient life on the road with their music. The result is their fourth studio album “Marlinchen In The Snow” to be released on April 19th 2024.
The Dardanelles
For more than a decade, the Dardanelles have been cementing themselves as one of the most exciting groups to ever play Newfoundland traditional music on the global stage. After some years of packing bars in their hometown of St. John’s, the Dardanelles quickly became a favourite of the Canadian festival circuit. They have performed at the Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Mariposa Folk Festivals and headlined the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival. Most recently, the Dardanelles brought their province’s music to foreign shores, performing in the UK, Australia, and throughout the US.
The Dardanelles play traditional music not out of duty or nostalgic obligation but because they think it’s great music, full of uplifting melodies and compelling stories. The band creates an atmosphere where at one moment, audiences are hypnotized by an unaccompanied ballad from Matthew Byrne, and the next, they’re dancing up a sweat to a set of traditional doubles. The Dardanelles are a new breed of folk group with a wide sense of the world, out to show that Newfoundland traditional music is alive, vibrant, and powerful.
Noah Hamilton
Noah Hamilton is a talented musician hailing from Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Though he is best known for his impressive piano playing, Noah is also a songwriter, with a sound that blends R&B and Pop. In addition to Noah’s regular solo shows, he plays piano in various bands on the West Coast, and has toured several times with Sherman Downey. He also served as the musician in residence at the Rotary Arts Centre from 2021-2022. Currently, he is focused on writing his debut album.
Looking Glass Ensemble
The Looking Glass Ensemble is an interdisciplinary collective, spotlighting collaboration and co- creation among a diverse group of artists. The interdisciplinary nature of the ensemble underpins the creative practices of its members, the originality and accessibility of its performances, and the diversity of artists with which the Ensemble can collaborate. The performances of The Looking Glass Ensemble are imagined as multi-layer concerts, allowing for audiences to experience the novelty of multiple art forms, including music, dance, poetry, and film, in the recognizable and accessible context of music presentation. We value art not only as a creative product but also as a process that brings about new ways of knowing and relating in the world.
Shannon Litzenberger
Shannon Litzenberger is an award-winning dancer, choreographer and director based in Toronto. Her work explores our relationship to land, the politics of belonging, and the forgotten wisdom of the body. Her imaginative productions have been presented across Canada and the US and she has collaborated with some of Canada’s most celebrated artists including Marie-Josée Chartier, Lorna Crozier, Christopher Dewdney, Susan Aglukark, David Earle, Ravi Jain, Don McKay, Renelta Arluk, Yvette Nolan, Karen Solie, and Michael Greyeyes, among others. She is the co-founder of the interdisciplinary Looking Glass Ensemble with Christine Carter and has been an invited resident artist at Soulpepper Theatre, Toronto Dance Theatre, Harbourfront Centre, Atlantic Ballet Theatre, Banff Centre, Saskatoon’s Remai Modern and Memorial University. Shannon is the recipient of the Jack McAllister Award for accomplishment in dance, the recipient of a 2019 Chalmers Arts Fellowship, a nominee for both the 2023 Johanna Metcalf Prize and the 2024 Gina Wilkinson Prize, and a twice-shortlisted finalist for the prestigious KM Hunter Award. Her recent work World After Dark was nominated for a Dora Mavor Moore Award.
Christine Carter
Known for her visionary interdisciplinary projects, clarinetist Christine Carter has built an international career as a captivating chamber musician, teaching artist, and scholar. She is the clarinetist of the critically acclaimed Iris Trio, co-founder of the inter-arts Looking Glass Ensemble with dance artist Shannon Litzenberger, and regularly collaborates with Duo Concertante, with whom she has released two albums on Marquis Classics. She has performed across the globe, from Carnegie Hall to the Sydney Opera House, and has been praised for her “striking expression” (Bremen Wester Kurier), “seductive tone and effortless fluidity” (The Clarinet), and “golden legato” (Fanfare Magazine). She has also performed extensively as an orchestral musician, including engagements with the New World Symphony, Symphony Nova Scotia, Montréal Symphony Orchestra, and Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and under the batons of some of the world’s finest conductors, such as Lorin Maazel, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, and Fabio Luisi. She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Manhattan School of Music, is currently an Associate Professor of Music at Memorial University in Canada, and was recently inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists, and Scientists. Christine is a Buffet Crampon Artist.
Diederik van Dijk
Diederik van Dijk is a Dutch-Canadian cellist with a broad range of musical activities and interests who is equally at home on the baroque and the modern cello. Based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, he divides his time mostly between chamber music and orchestral playing. With a practice spanning four centuries of music history and crossing over into various genres, his musical life has taken him from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw to stages in Newfoundland, to performing internationally at Early Music festivals. Diederik is a core member of baroque ensemble Combattimento. He is frequently engaged as principal cellist with the Nieuwe Philharmonie Utrecht. In recent years he has also performed with Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, the Orchestra of the 18th Century, the Metropole Orkest, Holland Opera, and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. Diederik studied cello with Ian Hampton, Eric Wilson, and Marc Destrubé, and baroque cello with Viola de Hoog, acquiring in the process a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Historical Instruments. Every day he is grateful to be able to share his love of music with fellow musicians and audiences.
Florian Hoefner
Born and raised in Germany, trained in New York City and now based in Canada, Juno Award-winning jazz pianist and composer Florian Hoefner draws from a myriad of influences that culminate in his unique brand of modern jazz. Praised as a “composer-bandleader of insightful resolve” by the New York Times and a “harmonically daring pianist … reaching toward new sonic territory” by Downbeat, Florian Hoefner continues to make waves as an inventive creator and performer of exciting contemporary jazz. He has released 6 albums under his own name and many more as a sideman. “Desert Bloom,” the second album with his trio with Andrew Downing and Nick Fraser, won a 2023 Juno Award for Jazz Album of the Year and was nominated for 2 East Coast Music Awards. As a touring artist he has played at venues and festivals on 5 different continents and has worked with musicians including Kurt Rosenwinkel, Norma Winstone, Joe LaBarbera, Jerry Bergonzi and Seamus Blake. He is the winner of 2 East Coast Music Awards, 2 MusicNL Awards, 2 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awards, and the Stingray Rising Star Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Florian currently serves as Assistant Professor of Jazz Studies at Memorial University in St. John’s, NL.
Ouroboros
One of the most innovative acts to ever emerge from Newfoundland & Labrador, Ouroboros brings together infectious dance grooves from around the world using the raw energy of saxes, vocals, and drums. Their 2019 ECMA Jazz Recording of the Year Album Kitchuses brought them across eastern Canada, as well as to the US and UK. While lately the band has stuck close to home, they continue to thrill audiences with their original brand of folk-funk-jazz.
Hit Piece
For this world gone wild, we humbly offer HIT PIECE as a tonic in these trying times. Designed to “get ‘em out, get ‘em up” Hit Piece is a brand new dance-it-out-of-ya collective boasting 9 of Newfoundland's most beloved musicians, songwriters and personalities. Remember good times? Interested in joy and fun? Dig digging? Why, this sounds like the perfect fit! Hit Piece got your back-beat.
A self-styled "creative engineer," Jodee Richardson works in most facets of the performing arts, making and partaking in projects that are grounded in local culture and sensibility but resonate internationally. He lives with his dog Nan in St. John's but is so close to picking up and moving to Woody Point.
Rasa
Sandy Morris and Erin best are both long-time Woody Point favourites who this year take the stage together as RASA.
Erin has a voice that could melt even the iciest of hearts. Sandy, the most easterly guitar player in North America, is a living Newfoundland legend and we are proud to have him as our Woody Point musician-in-residence. Together, they're a musical force to be reckoned with. Their debut album, "Neoprehistoric", blends rock, folk, and a hint of something indescribable, much like the feeling of finding a lost sock in the dryer.
When they're not making music, Sandy is likely in some lake or river practicing his front-stroke, backstroke, and fancy diving. Meanwhile, Erin can be found navigating the legal waters as a lawyer with Stewart McKelvey, probably arguing that all disputes should be settled with a jam session.