Guest Musicians
The work that will be performed at Sounds Like Alberta is described below.
“The work was inspired by the Highwood Pass and Grizzly Peak/Partridge Ridge in southern Alberta. The area is closed due to bear activity most of the summer and fall. “When I think of home, I think of the land. The rolling foothills, the vast plains, the coulees and valleys, the prairie grasses and berry bushes, the hot sun and the crackling cold of the winter. What is the home of the bear? How can I bring those chilly mountain winds, and crackling of twigs in the frosty fall, and the steady footsteps of a bear in the fall? I hope that this evocative piece will transport you to these places where the bear lives.” — Virginia Jessica Sparvier-Wells, Composer
Jessica McMann
Jessica McMann is an Alberta-based Cree, multi-disciplinary artist. She is registered and a member of Cowessess FN in SK. She is in the process of reclaiming her birth name and will be soon working under the name Virginia Jessica Sparvier-Wells. She interweaves land, Indigenous identity, history, and language throughout her dance and music creation/performance practice. A classically trained flutist, she holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Calgary and an MFA in Contemporary Arts from Simon Fraser University. Her work fuses together traditional language and dance with her own contemporary experiences as an Indigenous woman and Two-Spirit person.
Her musical, composition, and soundscape work focuses on land-based creation and ideas of connection, disconnection, and home. Her compositions include Muskwa's Mountain Home (2021), Inni (2018) and soundscapes including beguiling (the) land (2020).