As part of the Indigenous-Mennonite Encounters conference organized by Grebel in May 2022, Indigenous and Mennonite musicians offered a concert addressing relationships, beauty, nature, hope, and betrayal.
The Andromeda Trio, a Waterloo-based musical group pictured below, commissioned a new work by Grebel Music Professor Karen Sunabacka (bottom right). As a composer, Karen often finds inspiration from her Métis and mixed European heritage, and her new piece explores the relationships between Mennonites and Métis in Treaty 1 Territory. Miriam Stewart-Kroeker (WLU 2010), the cellist in the Trio, is a descendant of one of the first Mennonites in Manitoba in the 1870s.
The commissioned piece, “The Place Where the Creator Rests,” includes spoken voice, piano, violin, and cello. The piece begins with a brief history that highlights the values of the two peoples—the Métis in the Red River Settlement and the Mennonites in Europe. The middle of the piece then looks at the relationship between the two groups when they first encountered each other in the 1870s as Canada was expanding into the West. The final movement focuses on relationships and ways to move forward. Weaving together quotes, stories, and music, the piece shares the hopes, dreams, sorrows, and betrayals of these communities in what came to be known as Manitoba—the place where the Creator rests.
The concert also featured a new composition for choir titled “kânîmihitocik: They Who Are Dancing” by Juno-nominated cellist and composer Cris Derksen, of Mennonite and Cree heritage. A special choir performed “kâ-nîmihitocik” and several other pieces, directed by Grebel Music Professor Mark Vuorinen. Cris Derksen ended the concert with a memorable solo segment that combined Indigenous and urban elements using loop pedals, a drum machine, and electric cello.
Indigenous-Mennonite Encounters in Time and Place was an academic conference and community education event that offered stories and analyses of encounters and relationships between Indigenous peoples and Mennonite settlers from point of contact to the present. The intent was to advance understanding on the part of Mennonites and other interested participants of their colonial histories, and to advance reconciliation and bring justice to Indigenous-settler relations.
