Saturday, April 13, 2024
11:00 am
The Leaf, Assiniboine Park
WMC has tremendously exciting news. Tomson Highway is returning to WMC! We can say "returning", because 50 years ago he entered WMC's Scholarship Competition, and won! Inspired to become a concert pianist, he went on to earn a music degree in Piano Performance from the University of Western Ontario, followed by a Bachelor of Arts in 1976. However, born into a Cree family of caribou hunters and raised in that tradition, Tomson decided to dedicate his life to the service of his people. Subsequently, he immersed himself in the field of social work, working on reserves and in urban centres in Ontario and across Canada. At the age of 30, compelled to record his wide-ranging experience of Indigenous life and to put his artistic training to use, he began writing plays, songs, and novels. In 1986 he achieved national and international recognition with his sixth play, The Rez Sisters. Among the many awards bestowed upon Tomson Highway are eleven honorary doctorates, the Governor General's Performing Arts Award (2022), the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction for his memoir Permanent Astonishment. He was the first Indigenous writer to be inducted into the Order of Canada. In September 2022, Tomson delivered the CBC Massey Lectures to audiences in the series’ first live event since 2019. Fluent in Cree, French and English, he continues to write, teach, lecture, and perform across Canada and around the world.
We can't wait to present Tomson in a celebration of songs and stories as only he knows how to tell. We often hear the line "You don't want to miss this." Well, you really don't want to miss this!
Your tickets to this one-of-a-kind event are waiting for you here. Tickets include admission to the biomes at The Leaf. Partial tax receipt issued.
Read more about Tomson Highway here.
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