For Métis composer T. Patrick Carrabré, music creates space where we can be wrapped in beautiful sounds and spend time with important issues. His music grows out of the lands where we live and the causes that impact us. Recent projects include A Guest on these Lands, a piano concert for David Fung and The Mother Tree, with text from Suzanne Simard’s New York Times bestselling book. His most recent albums include Red River, a sonata for cello and piano written for his son Ariel and Histoires des Métis: the Freedom Songs, commissioned by the Vancouver Chamber Choir. He has received two Western Canadian Music Awards (for Classical Composer of the Year), as well as two Juno nominations and his Inuit Games, for katajjak (throat singers) and orchestra was a recommended work at the International Rostrum of Composers (2003).

Pat is Director of the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver and has been composer-in-residence with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and an on-air host for CBC Radio Music.

Watch “Red River,” Sonata for Cello and Piano

Watch Decolonizing My Creative Process: Embracing Indigeneity

Watch Snewíyalh tl’a Staḵw (Teachings of the Water)

A bit more about me:

I was born in Winnipeg. Although I have been known as Pat Carrabré for most of my life, my name at birth was Ronald Joseph Nault. My other Métis family names include Bruneau, Elémond, Racette, Landry and Lagimodière. These names all have deep roots in the unique Indigenous culture that developed in the Red River region, before it became Manitoba, a province in what is now known as Canada. We (the Métis of French descent) have historically called ourselves Michif (the French speak French, the Michif speak Michif, etc.). We have also been known as Bois-Brûlé (burnt wood) and more recently as Métis. I am a survivor of the 60s Scoop, the mass removal of Indigenous children into the Canadian child welfare system. I was very fortunate to be adopted by a wonderful and loving family who supported me in every way possible. But along my path, I have been processed and refined through the colonial education system, studying the practices of western art and music. Through the magic of DNA testing and recent changes that opened up adoption records, I have been reconnected with my birth family and reclaimed by my community. This has led me to embark on a voyage of unlearning, trying to craft an identity that reflects the complexity of my personal truth..