Baritone Jonathon Adams brings Indigenous and two-spirit identity to the classical world
Early Music Vancouver’s new artist in residence hosts a June 14 panel on Indigeneity and the arts
Photo by Ayako Nishibori
Early Music Vancouver streams the free Continuum: A conversation on historical musics and Indigenous resurgence panel discussion on June 14 at 11 am
JONATHON ADAMS’S background situates the singer uniquely to bridge the worlds of European classical music and Indigenous culture.
Thanks to a rich and expressive baritone, the Cree-Métis (nêhiyaw michif), two-spirit artist has a deep understanding of the early-music repertoire. And now, as part of a larger journey to reconnect with their heritage, the artist is uncovering the lost Métis and Indigenous songs of the same era.
“We’re conditioned to see European music as better or more sophisticated and complex,” Adams tells Stir, speaking over the phone from home in Montreal before heading out to Vancouver. “But the reality I’m finding through these tools I’ve honed in Europe and Canada is that the depth and tradition of Indigenous traditional music is just as vast.
“We need a better understanding collectively as Canadians of Indigenous music and Indigenous artists and the contribution of Indigenous people to the broader culture,” they add. “So much as been suppressed over so many decades—but it hasn’t been lost.”
Adams brings that perspective to a brand new role as summer artist-in-residence at Early Music Vancouver, where they start immediately with a panel on June 14. Titled Continuum: A conversation on historical musics and Indigenous resurgence, it’s the first of several projects and concerts they’re planning to take on here.
A lot of what Adams is driven to do now is rooted in their past, and the cultural awakening the artist started as a young adult. Adopted and raised by a white settler family in Edmonton, Alberta, Adams grew up in a home surrounded by the sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, taking up the piano lessons at just five; their adoptive grandmother had even been a ballerina with the Winnipeg Ballet (before the “Royal” was added to its name).
“I didn’t have any connection to my Indigeneity. My adoptive parents were wonderful…but they didn’t know how to bridge that gap for me,” Adams says. “It took until my early 20s when I felt ready.” That’s when the singer started to reconnect with their biological mother and research the Big Stone Cree Nation she was from.
As Adams began to find the Indigenous part of their identity, they discovered the stature and importance of two-spirit, or nonbinary and queer, people in that culture. It was like discovering a key to where they fit into the world.
“That was the real homecoming,” Adams says. “We were not ashamed. We were celebrated and revered. We held ceremonial positions in the community or were medicine people. We were held as dear in the Indigenous community. And that was a big moment of self-recognition and growth in that knowledge that I was two-spirit.”
At the same time, their career was taking off. Tagged by a choir conductor early on for their exquisite voice, Adams would go on to study at London’s Royal Academy of Music, the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, and the Victoria Conservatory of Music. In recent years, they have been based in Amsterdam, singing and touring the globe with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir and holding a 2020 and 2021 fellowship with the Netherlands Bach Society. Other highlights in Europe have included a solo debut at the Bruges Concertgebouwging.
Drawn back to their own culture, Adams returned to Montreal, taking up singing lessons with soprano Suzie LeBlanc (the new artistic director of EMV) in early 2020, and further digging into books of old Métis and Cree songs, collected by musicologists.
“That’s sort of a weird way for an Indigenous person to learn them,” they observe. “So I’m sort of learning them from books and consulting my Indigenous circle to see if they can understand my songs.”
The Métis music is particularly fascinating, they add, with roots in 17th-century French music blended with First Nations songs. You’ll get to hear exactly what Adams is talking about at a concert at this August’s Vancouver Bach Festival, the artist hints. (You can also scroll to the bottom of this article to see a video that gives a gorgeously haunting idea of the musical terrain Adams has been journeying into.)
Over their years of training, what has Adams’s experience been of racism or discrimination within the European classical world?
“All of my colleagues have been very wonderful and supportive of me in this new phase of my work,” they say, referring to the Métis and Cree repertoire. “Being in Europe for the last 10 years, I was sort of the lone Native. That always felt a little lonely. Here in Canada, there are a few more Indigenous people working in classical music, but not enough, and there’s not enough focus in the broader classical community on Indigenous music.”
Adams traces the problem back to colonial powers, and the fact that laws and residential schools tried to stop Indigenous people from practising their dances, songs, and language.
“The importance of singing these songs is really an act of resurgence,” Adams stresses. “It’s an act of giving this music its due.”
The impressive panel of speakers they’ve gathered for Monday speaks to a wider Indigenous resurgence that Adams is excited about and feels part of—an artistic renaissance that spans everything from the old Wəlastəkwewiyik songs performed by classically trained tenor Jeremy Dutcher to the fusions of rock and blues with Dene rhythms of Leela Gilday.
Joining Adams on the virtual panel will be Kwagiulth and Stó:lō First Nations, English, Irish and Scottish mezzo-soprano Marion Newman; Inuvialuit, Dene and Cree multidisciplinary artist Reneltta Arluk; and xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist, writer, and Queen’s University associate professor Dylan Robinson. Among the topics they’ll address: the issues of Canadian historical erasure of Indigenous peoples, white supremacy, Indigenous cultural resurgence, and the contemporary performance of historical musics and theatre in an Indigenous mode.
Over their broader term in Vancouver this summer, Adams hopes to spark an even greater resurgence--but also reach a new audience with early music."I really want to make sure that the Indigenous community in and around Vancouver is welcomed and feels like they have a place at Early Music Vancouver," Adams emphasizes. "That's really important to me because what EMV does, and what museums and libraries do, is hold our histories and display and share our collective histories. I'm really excited to welcome my Indigenous kin into EMV programming and tell them that their community and history and work has been part of shaping the culture."
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