Tanya Tagaq played Lincoln Center's 'American Songbook Series' (pics)
Before she began an impressive extended performance, Inuk throat singer Tanya Tagaq noted that she doesn’t perform in the traditional style. Traditional throat singing, she told the crowd at Lincoln Center’s Appel Room on March 9, involves two participants using each other’s mouths to reverberate off each other. Tagaq said she distanced herself from that, aiming for a more “contemporary” style — which was obvious to anyone that this performance, part of Lincoln Center’s American Songbook Series.
Tagaq’s latest album Retribution could be a spiritual companion to Ahonhi’s Hopelessness. WNYC’s John Schaefer explained Retribution “is about the rape of the Earth by heavy industry, and the threats posed to traditional culture and to the environment by Westernization and climate change. It is full of sound and fury; it draws on rock, hip hop, and the electronic avant-garde; it is provocative, forbidding, and surprisingly sensual.” Tagaq had been on WNYC’s “Soundcheck” the day before her performance at the Appel Room.
At Lincoln Center (and also for Soundcheck), Tagaq performed her cover of Nirvana’s “Rape Me,” which was her only song sung in English and which was the centerpiece of an otherwise abstract, guttural and powerful set. She was accompanied by Jesse Zubot on electronics and a genre-spanning violin (the Celtic sounding portions were a standout) and Jean Martin on percussion.
Pictures from Tanya’s American Songbook performance are above, and you can watch Tanya’s “Retribution” CBC Music First Play Live session at Feheley Fine Arts, and check out her upcoming tour dates, below:
Tanya Tagaq – 2017 Tour Dates:
Mar 13 Martha’s Vineyard, MA
Martha’s Vineyard Performing Arts Center
Mar 16 Saskatoon, SK
Broadway Theatre
Mar 18 Winnipeg, Manitoba
The West End Cultural Centre
Apr 13 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Kimmel Centre
Apr 20 Toronto, Ontario
The Phoenix Concert Theatre
Apr 21 Toronto, Ontario
Massey Hall
May 3 Kingston, Ontario
Grand Theatre
May 4 St. Catharines, Ontario
Partridge Hall
May 5 Oakville, Ontario
Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts
May 7 Meaford, Ontario
Meaford Hall
May 11 Seattle, WA
Neptune Theatre
May 12 Vancouver, British Columbia
Queen Elizabeth Theatre Plaza
May 13 Cumberland, BC
The Waverley Hotel
Jul 7 Montreal, Quebec
Club Soda
Jul 28–30 Oro-Medonte, Ontario
Wayhome Music & Arts Festival
Sep 30 Iqaluit, NU
Inuksuk High School
