Last night’s Confluence concert in the intimate space of the Ernest Balmer Studio; Sovereignty Voiced, was a fascinating mix of material celebrating various aspects of Indigenous culture and its interplay with Western arts. Marion Newman and Ian Cusson performed excerpts from two of his song cycles; Five Orchestral Songs on Poems of Marilyn Dumont and A Breakfast for Barbarians. Marion also gave us a few of her own songs including the wicked Appropriation Aria and the Kinanu, which she wrote for her sister; given here with Marion on hand drum, Larry Beckwith on violin and Ian at the piano.
But this was much more than a concert of Indigenous themed art song, enjoyable though that part was. There was also singer and drummer Aqua Nibii Waawaaskone with some of her own songs and actor Cole Alvis with stories about discovering his Métis roots. Poet Armand Garnet Ruffo read from his poems inspired by the paintings of Norval Morrisseau.
If the rest of the Confluence series is this thought provoking it will be a notable addition to the Toronto music and arts scene.
The demise of Toronto Masque Theatre was never likely to lead to the retirement of Larry Beckwith from the Toronto scene and it hasn’t. He’s back with a new concert series called Confluence that describes itself as a “a new interdisciplinary, cross-cultural multi-media (many-hyphened) project”. There’s a Pay What You Can kick off next Sunday, 16th September, at St. Thomas’ Church at 383 Huron Street at 2.30pm where there will be performances and readings featuring many of the season’s artists plus food and drink.
This review first appeared in the print edition of 
operaramblings 