Buffy Sainte-Marie (Keynote)

Wavelength Winter Festival: Speaker Series 2022

Featuring 

Buffy Sainte-Marie

March 23, 2022 (Wednesday) at 7pm EST

Register on Showclix here

FREE and ALL AGES 

The pandemic may have caused plenty of disruption over the last two years, but it’s also presented unique opportunities for arts organizations to get creative and try out innovative new programming models. While the month of February normally sees audiences gather at venues for the Wavelength Winter Festival, 2022 once again sees us doing something new and different. 

Throughout the month of March, Wavelength will be presenting a weekly Speaker Series, premiering each Wednesday evening on YouTube. All online and entirely free, the Wavelength Winter Festival: Speaker Series is presented with a focus on community care. While experiencing live arts can be difficult at this time, art is what breathes motivation, mobilization, and creative change. 

Join us in conversation with some of our most beloved creators as they share stories that inspire new corridors of possibility and above all, hope.

About Buffy Sainte-Marie

Buffy Sainte-Marie is touring constantly, and coming off her critically acclaimed, award-winning albums Medicine Songs and Power in the Blood, nobody could ever accuse the Academy Award-winning songwriter of taking it easy. Since her groundbreaking debut, 1964’s It’s My Way!, the Cree singer-songwriter has been a trailblazer and a tireless advocate, an innovative artist, and a disruptor of the status quo.

Sainte-Marie has spent her whole life creating, and her artistry, humanitarian efforts, and Indigenous leadership have made her a unique force in the music industry. In 1969, she made one of the world’s first electronic vocal albums; in 1982 she became the only Indigenous person to win an Oscar; she spent five years on Sesame Street where she became the first woman to breastfeed on national television. She’s been blacklisted and silenced. She’s written pop standards sung and recorded by the likes of Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Donovan, Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes. She penned “Universal Soldier,” the definitive anti-war anthem of the 20th century. She is an icon who keeps one foot firmly planted on either side of the North American border, in the unsurrendered territories that comprise Canada and the USA.

On her latest studio recording, the JUNO Award-winning Medicine Songs, Sainte-Marie doesn’t sugarcoat the truth or shy away from hard realities. At the same time, she is also never overwhelming or oppressive on this collection of nineteen songs that shine light on urgent subject matter including environmental destruction, alternative conflict resolution, Indigenous realities, greed, and racketeering.

Rather than making us feel smaller, sadder or more cynical, Buffy Sainte-Marie makes us feel stronger and more capable of seeing the world around us clearly. Part rhythmic healing, part trumpeting wakeup call, Medicine Songs is the soundtrack for the resistance.

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Announcing:

Wavelength Winter Festival: Speaker Series 2022

Every Wednesday in March at 7pm EST
March 2-30, 2022
All events FREE, ALL AGES & streaming live at https://bit.ly/WL-YOUTUBE

Featuring keynote speaker:
Buffy Sainte-Marie (Indigenous folk music pioneer & Polaris Music Prize winner)
Register here

With artist talks by:
Beverly Glenn-Copeland (Canadian composition legend)
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Maylee Todd aka MALOO (Stones Throw Records)
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Casey Mecija (Ohbijou, York University) and Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem in My Heart) in conversation
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And an original film by:
Sook-Yin Lee & Dylan Gamble
Register here

For more info, visit wavelengthmusic.ca