“I told my mom when I was three, that I wanted to play the flute, and mom at the time didn’t really listen to classical music and was ‘how does a three year old know what a flute is?’ and she got me a piano by the time I was five. So music has always been my second language and I’m definitely more fluent in music then English.” Derksen laughs.

Derksen elaborated “Music is a way to express the way when I can’t find the words. It’s so ethereal, esoteric and intangible right? Music is a feeling more than it is notes on a page.”

Derksen met and then toured with Tanya Tagegeg

She was the artist in residence in Banff and formed Indigenous Music Collaborative

Derksen branched out on her in 2010 with her debut album. “To have a career in music, you have to be really diverse and I needed to be my own boss a little bit more.”

“I guess I just really understand all the layers of what it takes to be a musician, so like when I go a perform with Saskatoon, I understand what it’s like to be a guest musician, because I’ve been there. With Tanya, I understand what it’s like to be a side musician. So when I do things that are more electronic with my band, I understand what it takes to be a good leader, learning from her and it’s given me a really good backbone and grounding.”

“So the rad thing about the piece I’m bringing to Saskatoon, is that this is the piece that went to Carnegie Hal, I’ve played it several times, I’m really comfortable with it and it’s very special to me.” Derksen said. “In this piece I’m using electronics on my cello with the orchestra, using my drum machine which has a really big piece as well. It’s really dynamic.” Derksen exclaimed.

“When I was researching it, I talked to Amy Christensen who is a Métis fire person who is the Parks Canada Indigenous fire person. She’s been in that role a really long time. I think she has her doctorate in fire. Talking to her was really crucial to my process. I knew about the practice of controlled burn, lighting fires intentionally to keep the Earth safe and clean. The thing that really bounced was when she said ‘Cris, think about the sound pre contact, when these controlled burns happen, it would happen in community settings it would be safe and celebrated thing. When we think of the wild fires, it’s the opposite, it’s militarized, it’s dangerous and it should be because it is dangerous, but I think we have lost our relationship with fire throughout the things that have happened in Canada stopped indigenous cultures from happening. . That was super crucial the idea of militarizing fire.” Derksen said..

“Originally for me when I was leaving University, is that how do I bring the cello out of the concert hall and down to the street level. And now it’s the opposite, how do I bring the street level up to the orchestra. How do I make music relatable?

On her partnership with Roy “We’ve been friends for a little bit and she needed help with the arraigning of her pieces. I was so happy to step in and do that job for her. Zoe is such a beautiful soul, special soul and there’s not a lot of Zoe’s in the world. I think what her and her partner, Omar did with Ever Beautiful is a lovely journey between classical-esque pieces to hip hop to spoken word Zoe style. I think it really shows who Zoe is.” Derksen said.

Roy is Cree, Denee Metis “I’ve been writing and performing as spoken word or rap since I was seven but consistenialy since I was fifteen. I mostly practice the art of spoken word, I really love it as a form of contemporary oral tradition. I love that in spoken word, it’s an art form that can shape shift to different industries. I love that the words that are alive, it’s just not words but expressed. That’s really important to me, not only as a way to embody an identity as an indigenous person to connect to my culture but to also work through and process my own thoughts and feelings.” Roy said.

“You can’t just say stuff and not live it. So I’ve really challenged myself to live what I speak, which sometimes could go against being an overachiever, it is stressful but at the same time I’ve been able to refine myself as Zoe.” Roy said

“My name starts with a z and the alphabet starts with an a, my grade two teacher was teaching us one day and there was an alphabet on the back of the wall of the classroom and I was wondering why the alphabet has to start with an a? Why can’t it start with a z like my name? So what would that alphabet song sound like? So I practiced, practiced and to me, it just sounded way more cool to say the alphabet backwards. But I didn’t realize that at the time that I was subverting an institution and that’s not something a lot of people thought of.

“My grade two teacher encouraged us to go to the library and take a book and chose a poem. I chose I’m in a rotten mood by Jack Porlesky and I performed it in an orory completion, I had to memorize it and put actions to my words. It was one of the most powerful moments for me as a child because I‘m the youngest child of three, it was hard to get any air time at home but when I performed in the orortory competition, I thought it was really powerful that I had to speak for an audience, they would listen to me and I would captivate them and at the end they would clap for me. It gave me an opportunity to be seen and heard, I found it really powerful and I never wanted to look back.

Roy ended up getting second place in that competition.

At fourteen

“I was a really angry teenager, I experienced a lot of injustice that I didn’t understand the complexities of my life. I just knew it was painful. Poetry is a way I can categorize the complexity. Poetry was a way for me to process the complexity of my life. My life continues to be challenging, I just happen to have a gift of writing and performing. I remember going out to the pit in my school and sharing my work with my friends. I really love rap in particular because rap you’re not a victim of your circumstance, in hip hop you’re challenged to embody your inner superhero which I think is a really powerful thing because you don’t succumb to the reality that you really are being victimized, but you don’t have the luxury of rolling over, nor do you really want to roll over. It’s something I found really important for my life for preserving my own voice and the the pulse of who I am.” Roy said.

“It’s a seven part poetry collection and it is to celebrate a person’s life, and what I got from writing this collection, just because we go through experiences that feel like they take from our humanity or experiences that are unwholesome and it doesn’t take away from our wholesomeness.” Roy said.

“Ever Beauty is also a play on words. Like we say in Native spaces ‘ever deadly or ever sick’, it’s native slang. I don’t want to be stereotyped but I want to be part of my community. I haven’t told anybody that part yet, but that’s why I named the show Ever Beautiful.” Roy said.

“It’s also not my first time performing with an orchestra, I’ve worked with orchestras since 2017, this will be the first time I have been able to control of the entire show from beginning to the end. I will own a percentage of the rights, so that means we can we market it and take it around the world, without licensing it to other orchestras.” Roy said.

“And the music was actually produced by my partner, Omar Obeatz Valentine. He’s my life partner. He’s a hip hop producer. So the music is actually produced, like hip hop instrumental that are then rearranged for orchestra by Cris Derksen. I think it is really powerful because it invites the orchestra into indigenous consciousness but also black consciousness.” Roy said

“The visuals that are going to accompany the performance are filmed and edited by a good friend, Geordie Tirfa. The films are featuring indigenous artists who I really admire and has been years in the making.” Roy said.   

Roy is finishing her PH.D.