Settler colonialism is a choral project: Lukas Sawatsky, Converging paths: settler colonialism and the Canadian choral tradition, MA dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Settler colonialism is a choral project: Lukas Sawatsky, Converging paths: settler colonialism and the Canadian choral tradition, MA dissertation, University of Manitoba, 2025

20Sep25

Abstract: This thesis resists the grand narrative of Canadian music history by examining Canadian choral works through a settler colonial theoretical framework. I specifically focus on the politics of translation and the relationship between text and music. I exemplify my methodology in this thesis with a brief discussion of R. Murray Schafer’s Miniwanka: Moments of Water (1971), explaining how his use of Indigenous words constitutes a form of extractive composition, or a use of Indigenous culture undertaken without the consent of those to whom it belongs in a settler-colonial context. I then apply this methodology to my primary case studies: Imant Raminsh’s Along the Flower Trail: Earth Chants (1982) and Andrew Balfour’s Nagamo (2022). Both works engage with the politics of translation: Raminsh sets Indigenous song in English translation, and Balfour sets English texts translated into Cree and Ojibway. I contrast Raminsh’s extractive methods with Balfour’s unsettling methods to point the way towards a reinvigorated musical practice that avoids reifying settler colonialism. These close readings provide methods to further understand Canadian music history and its close relationship with settler colonialism.

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