Norine Braun is an award-winning Métis and Two Spirit singer-songwriter and recording artist from East Vancouver, known for her soulful vocals, introspective lyrics, and genre-blending mix of roots rock, blues, and folk. With 15 commended albums, Braun continues to craft emotionally resonant music that explores identity, belonging, and transformation.
Her latest release in 2025 is A Hero In The Wind. The album's title track was written in honour of her birth father—anchors an album recorded in a remarkable way: the first five songs were captured live-off-the-floor in just one hour each during Steve Dawson’s Henhouse Pop-Up Sessions. The result is a raw, immediate, and deeply human collection that reflects love, reconnection, and reclamation.
Braun’s concept album Journey Toward Wholeness released in 2024 chronicled her reunion with her birth father and Métis family echoing Braun’s lived experience as an adoptee and was supported with an award by the First Peoples’ Cultural Council. Her environmentally themed Songs For Trees was named "one of The Vancouver Sun’s 5 Albums You Need to Hear." This album also was supported by First Peoples' Cultural Council, Canada Council For the Arts and FACTOR awards.
A captivating performer, Braun’s music continues to resonate across Canada and beyond.

Anthony Pasqua aka Big Tones is an award-winning Indigenous Recording Artist born in Surrey, BC. He grew up in Regina, SK and is now residing in Saskatoon, SK. He has heavy ancestral ties to Treaty 4 Territory coming from Pasqua First Nation #79. Breaking the cycle of intergenerational trauma, Big Tones uses music as an outlet, finding therapeutic release in storytelling through songwriting. Big Tones is a versatile artist, captivating performer and artist mentor. With a focus on old school hip hop sound, his powerful and soothing voice with intricate flows keeps listeners intrigued lyric after lyric. Big Tones is building on the momentum which has grown around his artistry and music over the last year. His single “Don’t Cry” reached #1 on the Indigenous Music Countdown and his track “Moccasin Flats” also broke the top 10. Big Tones won song of the year at the Saskatchewan Indigenous Music Association Awards for this new single "Shine".

Sara Kae is an Ojibwe and Cree artist, writer and performer with limitless range both in the stories she tells and where she tells them. A member of Lake Helen First Nation, Sara got her start touring northern Ontario with her father, speaking and singing in schools and community gatherings from the age of 12. Today, as an honours graduate and Founders Award recipient at Metalworks Institute in Mississauga and 2025 CBCxSOCAN Foundation Reverie resident, Sara’s early career accomplishments include a concert series with the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, co-creating a musical theatre production (“Trading Places”), and opening for Juno award winning, Aysanabee. On the radio Sara’s been heard as a recording artist on her debut single “Rise”, headlining her own Toronto radio program with APTN, and hosting national Truth and Reconciliation Day programming on CBC. Her single “25" released last September opened a new and exciting musical chapter in the story of Sara Kae; told with the tone, nuance, and personality you would expect from a prodigy of Sara’scaliber and lived experience. The full-length EP, Maadaadizi, funded by the Ontario Arts Council is an intimate and organic tribute to Sara's growth.

Nuskmata Jacinda Mack is a Nuxalk artist, singer, and songwriter whose music bridges the ancestral and the contemporary. Rooted in the powerful traditions of her Nuxalk homelands, Nuskmata’s voice carries the stories, language, and spirit of her people into new creative landscapes that blend traditional songs with modern sounds.
A versatile performer, Nuskmata has sung in live bands and explored a wide range of musical genres, from the heartbeat of traditional Nuxalk songs to the driving rhythms of rock and the storytelling of folk. Her songwriting reflects both cultural resurgence and personal experience—honoring the land, language, and community that shape her identity.
Nuskmata contributed three songs to Nusximta, the first-ever all-Nuxalk language album, a groundbreaking project dedicated to revitalizing and celebrating Nuxalkmc language through music. Her work on Nusximta highlights her deep commitment to cultural preservation and innovation, bringing ancestral knowledge into contemporary artistic expression.
Whether performing in intimate gatherings or on larger stages, Nuskmata’s music is an act of love and resistance—celebrating who she is as a Nuxalk woman and artist, and inviting listeners to witness the living strength of Indigenous voice and creativity.
 

Mobéy Lola Irizarry (they/them) is a Two Spirit cultural worker in Salsa, Bomba, poetry, and transdisciplinary performance. Based in Brooklyn, they hail from the Puerto Rican diaspora in Hartford, CT, and are a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. They make within the lineages of decolonial uprisings, collections of tiny mirrors at queer clubs, and the precolonial languages of the drum and the braid. They are a Letras Boricuas ‘26 fellow. Lola is the creative director and conguere for Las Mariquitas, Salsa’s young queer future.

Logan Staats hails from Six Nations of the Grand River and has earned a reputation as one of Canada’s cultural tastemakers, a land defender and one of our premiere storytellers. As an artist, he pairs gritty and compelling songwriting with raw, authentic and high energy performances that electrify the audience. Weaving his way through the sounds of Folk, Rock, Roots and Americana music, Staats powerful voice has become a fan favorite across the country, and around the world.

Evalyn Parry is a Canadian theatre-maker working as a director, writer, performer and collaborator with a focus on the creation of new work. Recent projects include directing The 52 (Luminato / Museum of Toronto); Why It’s Possible by Sophia Fabiilli (GCTC); The Piano Teacher by Dorothy Dittrich (Thousand Islands Playhouse / GCTC), The Dialysis Project by Leah Lewis (RCAT Newfoundland), and composing music for A Midwinter’s Night Dream (Caravan Theatre). She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including Dora Awards for playwriting and composing; The KM Hunter Award for Theatre, The Ken McDougall Award for Directing, and Colleen Peterson Songwriting Award. Her genre-defying, documentary shows Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools and SPIN have both toured nationally and internationally. She is a founding member of Independent Auntie Productions (shortlisted for a Governor General Award for their play Gertrude and Alice) with Anna Chatterton and Karin Randoja. Evalyn served as Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto from 2015 to 2020. 

One of Canada’s most popular playwrights, Mark’s work has been produced across the country and internationally. He is the author of nine plays: Stag and Doe; Bed and Breakfast; The Birds and the Bees; Boys, Girls, and Other Mythological Creatures; The New Canadian Curling Club; Chase the Ace; The Gig; The Golden Anniversaries; and Ruby and the Reindeer. Many of Mark’s plays are published by Scirocco Drama. He has been nominated for the Playwrights Guild of Canada Comedy Award and long-listed for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour. Also an actor, Mark has performed on stages from coast to coast. He grew up on his family’s farm in Southwestern Ontario, studied at the University of Toronto and Sheridan College, and now lives in Stratford.