AUSOM Concert & Lecture Series
February 2, 2023 (1:00 pm - 2:00 pm)
Location: Festival Theatre
On Thursday, February 2, the Acadia School of Music Concert & Lecture Series presents "Rita Joe's 'I Lost My Talk': Songs of Reconciliation & Hope" by Dr. Gordon E. Smith.
"I Lost My Talk" is a powerful 15-line narration of institutional suffering in the residential school system, including the suffocation of Indigenous languages and cultures, experiences that Rita Joe lived in the four years she spent in the Schubenacadie residential school in the 1940s.
Dr. Smith's presentation will trace the impact of the poem - and that of Rita Joe - especially in the seven years since the publication of the federal government's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report in 2015. Dr. Smith will focus on the multi-media composition based on "I Lost My Talk" commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra in 2016. Part of a large work titled "Life Reflected," this composition has received multiple performances in various locations, including Eskasoni, Rita Joe's home community, in 2017. In addition, Dr. Smith will discuss other artistic and musical creativity inspired by the poem within the context of critical frames around Indigenous identity, and artistic and musical expression and Indigenous reconciliation.
Dr. Smith is an ethnomusicologist with the DAN School of Drama and Music at Queen's University.
This presentation will be held in the Festival Theatre Building, beginning at 1pm.
This is a free event and community members are welcome to attend. Please note that face masks are required on the Acadia campus.
