SPOTLIGHT: T. Patrick Carrabré

Métis composer Dr. T. Patrick Carrabré discusses his unique compositional style, the Sixties Scoop, and his musical experiences in British Columbia.

‍Featured music:‎

Ancestral Drone‎

Chanson de la Gornouillèr (Métis Songs)‎

Inuit Games

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome to Notes of the North Talks, a series where we get to know our local

(00:10):
Canadian composer talent.
Today I'm here with Dr. T. Patrick Carrabré.
Thank you so much, Pat, for taking the time to speak with me today.
A real pleasure, Brianna.
First and foremost, I'd love to get to know your background a little better.
So where in Canada do you call home?
Well let me begin this way.

(00:30):
Pat Carabre, Deshnikah Shon.
Red River, Oshchinia, Maca, Vancouver, Niwakenikwa.
So that said, my name is Pat Carabre and I'm originally from Red River in Manitoba, Treaty
One territory, but I'm now living in Vancouver and I'm currently coming to you from Ch'masquiam

(00:51):
territory at the University of British Columbia.
Beautiful.
Is there any place else that you feel connected to and that may have shaped your work?
Well, I think particularly the prairies.
I mean, I grew up and worked in Manitoba for much of my career and my family's there and
in fact I'm a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation, the Red River Métis, and my family's

(01:17):
been there since before it was part of Canada, long before it was part of Canada.
So I feel pretty rooted in that territory, although the beauty of British Columbia and
the lack of minus 40 is pretty important.
Yes, for sure.
Now a little bit more on the musical route.
How did you first start composing?

(01:38):
Oh wow, that's something that I think I tell my students that if you can be a plumber,
be a plumber.
Otherwise, if you have to compose, all right, okay.
You have to compose.
And for me, it was something that really struck me when I was quite young.
The song was in my head and music was something that I really was drawn to.

(02:03):
I was part of the, or am part of the 60s scoop.
So I was taken from my birth mother, from my Métis family and adopted by a white family
who were not particularly musical at all.
And so they were a bit confused why their great one child wanted piano lessons when
nobody else in the neighborhood wanted piano lessons.

(02:23):
But it's worked out for me well.
I began to learn.
I was just singing and writing down melodies and writing songs and taking piano lessons
and writing down piano pieces.
I really didn't know what it meant to be a composer until I was quite a bit older.
I saw my first living composer when I was probably about 16.

(02:45):
Sophie Carmen Eckhart-Grammatte, who was one of the few composers in Manitoba at the time.
And so it wasn't really until I got to university that I started to understand what that meant.
But I've been pretty fortunate that it's been how I define myself as a human being,
as a composer.
Amazing.

(03:06):
So if you could describe your musical style as a composer in three words, what would they
be?
Well, I mean, that's not really possible, but I'll do my best.
I would say melodic, rhythmic and changing because I think my style is continuously changing.
You know, I use lots of different techniques and it's evolved over my career.

(03:27):
So it really depends on the time and place, but it all represents me and who I think I
am at that time.
Beautiful.
Is there one of your works that you feel really represents your musical style?
Yeah, I mean, I think quite a few of them.
I mean, they all represent different components of me, but I'll say that the piece on my last

(03:52):
album, the title piece of my last album, A Hundred Thousand Lakes, is probably a good
example of who I am.
It was written as a commission for the Canada 150 celebrations and I was asked to write
something that I thought was relevant.
So I chose to write a piece about Manitoba, about the geography.

(04:13):
When I was a young person, Manitoba's license plate said A Hundred Thousand Lakes and I
think that's really only because the Minnesota license plates had said 10,000 lakes and so
we had to kind of one up them or multiply them.
But those 100,000 lakes are really important to the identity of Manitoba and Manitoba and

(04:36):
the lands.
They resulted from the end of the last ice age when these huge outpourings of water from
the glaciers kind of scraped off the top of the land and made room for these 100,000 lakes.
So I wanted to kind of draw attention not just to Canada, but Canada in the context
of the geography and the history of the land where there have been indigenous peoples on

(04:59):
that land for thousands of years.
Yeah, I think it's important for us to have the context of Canada within the broader history
of our geography and our people.
There have been indigenous people living on that territory for thousands of years and
that geography and that relationship to the land is something that modern people living

(05:23):
in that territory as part of Canada should really put it in that broader context.
Beautiful and I did see your music really involves construction of identity.
I'd love to see how deeply connected you are to your Metis roots and how this is woven
through your pieces such as Metis songs, teachings of the water and there are other pieces such

(05:43):
as Inuit games.
How have some of these compositions connected you closer to Canada and your cultural history?
Yeah, for sure.
I mean and I guess it was just after 2000 that I started working more with other indigenous
artists.
So one of the first pieces I entered into in that context was Inuit games, which was

(06:06):
a piece for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.
And I played in my mind a very traditional Metis role, which is kind of mediating between
indigenous culture and Western culture.
So I wrote the orchestra part and I worked with two Inuit catajack singers who then they
improvised in the context of their tradition.

(06:28):
So we agreed on how they would fit into the overall structure of the piece and it was
a really beautiful opportunity for us to find common ground between our two musical traditions
because even though I'm Metis, I'm well and truly colonized, I have a PhD in music composition

(06:49):
from City University of New York.
So I've gone down that rabbit hole pretty far and more in recent years I've been trying
to connect to my Metis roots and to other, now since moving to Vancouver, some of the
other indigenous traditions here in this territory.

(07:11):
So Teachings of the Water, for example, was a great project with some artists and knowledge
keepers from the Squamish Nation.
I was working with a choir, the Electra Women's Choir, that wanted to do something around
water protocols here.
And so I said, okay, fine, I mean, I'm not from here so I don't have a direct link to

(07:33):
those water protocols.
So we need to make sure that we connect to the elders and the knowledge keepers both
for water and for language.
And it was a really great process.
And so I felt very comfortable again playing that kind of mediator role where I constructed
the piece in such a way that it could be done in any territory and that the choir has an

(07:55):
invitation to connect to the indigenous caretakers of the land where they are.
Metis songs was a different story.
That was a pure opportunity for me to work with some other Metis musicians and to highlight
the reclamation of our culture, both by using a traditional song.
I used a text by Pierre Facon, which was about the Battle of Frog Plain, which was one of

(08:21):
the first times when the Metis people came together to defend their rights.
And then it ends with a song by Gregory Schofield, an amazing poet who now lives in Victoria,
who was talking about this reclamation of Metis identity through the Canadian census
and how we're growing beyond how history kind of put its foot on us and kept us down.

(08:46):
Awesome, can't wait to hear.
So on top of composing from this part of your identity, you also have pieces like you touched
on that are more on the Western European classical side, I guess, such as Sonata No. 1.
So the music scene in Canada, especially the Western traditional classical scene, I guess,
is constantly evolving.

(09:07):
Do you find it challenging to make music that appeals to these current audiences, both here
in Canada, but also internationally?
Yeah, I mean, I was really lucky.
As I said, I was trained in that Western classical tradition.
And the first piece of mine that got recognition was that my first Violin Sonata, which was
nominated for a Juno Award in like the late 1980s.

(09:32):
And it's called subtitled The Penitent.
So it was really me wanting to pay homage to that great tradition, made some amazing
things there, but try and put it into the context of how I felt music was evolving.
And I think concert audiences are hungry for different ideas about music for different

(09:52):
styles and we're really at a good time when the doors are open to much more diversity.
And I think that's one of the things that Canada really embraces.
I know when I was younger, I was often, people just thought I was an American composer because
my training was so much in that style.

(10:12):
And I kept having to say, no, but I'm Canadian.
They said, well, what's the difference?
And for me, that difference is really we embrace diversity in a way that is unique to Canada.
And it's the kind of thing where there are more strict kind of groupings in a larger

(10:34):
country like America, whereas there's such diversity here.
And there aren't as many composers in the same style.
So we've all learned to work together and learn from each other in ways that you might
not in a larger country because we have different modes of communication.
But I think that strengthens our ability to identify the way that we want to with the

(10:57):
kind of music that we want to write.
And we have really good concert series in all across the country where people can hear
the music of their own composers.
Beautifully said.
As a final message, what is something that you would like to share with young Canadians?
Oh, wow.
That's a big order.

(11:18):
But I guess I would say that my hope is that we move towards making even more space for
diversity.
There's still a lot of different ideas that have not found an easy way to be expressed
in our culture.
And for people to share and access to hear the amazing beauty that comes from so many

(11:40):
different ways of thinking and being and knowing the world.
So I think that it's a time for young Canadians to stand up and say, yes, we want to support
that and we want Canada to be the kind of all embracing community where people can really
realize who they are and express that.

(12:01):
We just want to be as open as possible.
Absolutely.
And I certainly feel that from my students and from younger composers that I work with.
Beautiful.
Thank you so much.
No problem at all.
Take care.