Beverley's Recommendations
This is a list of resources mentioned by Beverley McKiver during her interview with Elizabeth Robinson. The resources are listed alphabetically.
Andrew Balfour
Andrew Balfour is an innovative Cree composer, conductor, singer, and sound designer. As a result of the Sixties Scoop, Andrew was raised in a non-Indigenous family, and grew up singing in the church choir and playing trumpet. Today, he is a highly sought-after composer who is known for fusing Classical music traditions with Indigenous texts and themes to highlight the unsettling sociopolitical pressures and commentary that have surrounded Indigenous peoples for many years.
For more about Andrew, check out his bio or listen to his interview for Polyphony with interviewer Hillary Chu.
Banff Centre
The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity was founded as a course in drama in 1933. Since then, it has become global leader in arts, culture, and creativity. The Banff Centre "aims to inspire everyone who arrends our campus to unleash their creative potential".
Brahms Intermezzo
Johannes Brahms wrote many Intermezzo pieces in his liftetime. You can find scores for his Intermezzos at the Music Library.
You can also learn more about Brahms and his works at Grove Online.
Canadian Floral Emblems : suite for solo piano
"This suite of piano solos composed by Beverley McKiver is inspired by the floral emblems of the ten provinces and three territories in Canada. The series was launched on August 9, 2020 on Facebook Premiere. A closing concert of the entire suite was presented on November 15, 2020."
Watch videos and find out more about the Canadian Floral Emblems suite on Beverley's website.
Ian Cusson
"Ian Cusson is a Canadian composer of art song, opera and orchestral work. Of Métis (Georgian Bay Métis Community) and French Canadian descent, his work explores the Canadian Indigenous experience, including the history of the Métis people, the hybridity of mixed-racial identity, and the intersection of Western and Indigenous cultures."
Ian Cusson is a faculty member at Banff Centre. Learn more at his website.
Jumblies Theatre
"Jumblies is a Toronto-based organization with a national and international reach that engages in collaborations between professional artists and diverse people and communities, and mentors and supports others to do so. Jumblies expands where art happens, who gets to be part of it, what form it takes and which stories it tells. This imperative has led us outside of specialized art places, and to place participation and radical inclusion at the core of our projects. We say Everyone is welcome! and embrace the joys and challenges, social and aesthetic, of meaning or trying to mean it."
Learn more at their website.
U of T community members can watch their production By these Presents: "Purchasing" Toronto (2019).
Melody McKiver
Beverley's daughter, Melody McKiver is an innovative musician whose work combines electronics and Western classical music to form "a new genre of Anishinaabe compositions". Their debut EP Reckoning was nominated for an Indigenous Music Award, and they were a participant in the Banff Centre for the Arts’ inaugural Indigenous Classical Music Gathering. Melody has performed with Polaris Prize winners Lido Pimienta, Tanya Tagaq, and Jeremy Dutcher, and has performed across Turtle Island at venues such as the National Arts Centre and the Toronto International Film Festival.
Learn more at their website.
Native Earth Performing Arts
"Native Earth Performing Arts is Canada’s oldest professional Indigenous theatre company. Currently in our 38th year, we are dedicated to creating, developing and producing professional artistic expressions of the Indigenous experience in Canada."
Learn more at their website.
Oscar Peterson’s Canadiana Suite
Released in 1964, this jazz album by Oscar Peterson is a aural journey through the landscapes of Canada. You can find the score of the Canadiana Suite in the Music Library.
Soundstreams
"Soundstreams is a global leader in the presentation of innovative, carefully curated, and immersive musical experiences. Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney is committed to showcasing the work of living Canadian and global composers/musicians, often with a focus on bringing to focus contemporary conversations to our communities."
Learn more at their website.
Tomson Highway
"Tomson Highway is the proud son of legendary caribou hunter and world championship dogsled racer, Joe Highway, and artist-in-her-own-right (as bead-worker and quilt-maker extraordinaire), Pelagie Highway. A full-blood Cree, he is a registered member of the Barren Lands First Nation, the village for which is called Brochet (pronounced "Bro-shay") and which village is located in northern Manitoba where it meets Saskatchewan and what is now called Nunavut. Today, he writes novels, plays, and music for a living. Having studied music and English literature at the Universities of Manitoba (Winnipeg) and Western Ontario (London), as well as in England, he earned both his Bachelor of Music Honours (Piano Performance major, 1975) and the equivalent of a Bachelor of Arts (English major, 1976), both from 'Western.'"
Learn more at his website.
Many of his novels and plays are available to borrow from University of Toronto Libraries. You can also listen to an interview with Tomson Highway in A Literary Atlas of Canada: This is my Country, What's Yours?, available at Robarts Library, and watch two videos about his life and work at Media Commons: Tomson Highway, native voice and Tomson Highway: Thank you for the love you gave me.