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Juno-nominated Indigenous composer and cellist Cris Derksen was in the passenger seat of an SUV, heading home from events in Northern Alberta honouring her father, who died recently, when she was killed in a head-on collision on Friday.
Ms. Derksen, 45, was pronounced dead at the scene, about an hour‘s drive from Slave Lake, Alta.
The two-spirit classical musician, who had a scheduled tour stop in Calgary in June, is being remembered by loved ones and fellow artists for how she bridged traditional and contemporary sound, as well as for her sincerity and compassion.
The National Arts Centre said in a statement Sunday that Ms. Derksen’s work resonated across the country and the world, bringing a “powerful and unmistakable voice to contemporary music.”
The National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations, Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak, urged Canadians to honour the Cree musician by supporting First Nations arts and culture.
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Melody McKiver, an assistant music professor at the University of Manitoba, acclaimed violist and composer, considered Ms. Derksen more than a friend and colleague.
Mx. McKiver, who uses the pronouns they and them, described Ms. Derksen as their “most trusted and brutally honest confidant.” Ms. Derksen challenged “rigid, racist confines of status quo Western classical music performance” and served as the “North Star” of a tight-knit community of Indigenous musicians, singers and composers, Mx. McKiver said.
“Cris noticed my work before I could even see myself as a solo performer or violist, and kept track at every step of the way over our last 15 years of friendship,” they told The Globe and Mail. “Cris did this for so many within our Indigenous performing arts communities.”
As of Sunday afternoon, Mx. McKiver said Ms. Derksen’s wife, Rebecca Benson, known to many friends as Bobby, remained in intensive care following the crash.
Ms. Derksen’s aunt, Theresa Johnson, wrote on Facebook that her niece left behind a “profound legacy and enchanting music.”
“There has to be a divine purpose why I had to bid farewell to her merely a week after laying my brother, Bernie, her dad, to rest,” Ms. Johnson wrote. “She serenaded him with her cello one final time, and this poignant moment will forever be etched in my memory as a testament to her remarkable talent.”
Earlier this month, Ms. Derksen, from Tallcree First Nation in Alberta, posted on social media that her father, Bernard Meneen, died unexpectedly.
The post included details about funeral plans for the former chief. Ms. Derksen wrote her heart was broken and that she was sending her father songs for his journey ahead.
Corporal Matthew Howell, a public information officer for the Alberta RCMP, said Sunday there will be an investigation into Friday’s crash. He said he could not identify anyone who was in the accident, but friends and family confirmed this was the crash that killed Ms. Derksen.
Ryan Coutts, deputy fire chief with Lesser Slave Lake Regional Fire Service, was the second emergency responder to arrive on scene. He said a large crowd gathered to try and help two drivers trapped in their vehicles. Both were cut free by the fire service and were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries, he said.
Mr. Coutts said this stretch of the two-lane Highway 44 is known to be dangerous, in part because it lacks passing lanes and there are often poor road conditions.
“In the last three weeks, we’ve had two head-on collisions and three total fatalities, about 30 kilometres apart on the most beautiful spring days,” he said, adding that the local community has pushed the provincial government to upgrade the roads, perhaps twinning traffic lanes.
AIM, a booking agency that worked with Ms. Dersken, issued a statement on Sunday morning calling her a visionary artist. It also said, “to know Cris was to know a force of nature.”
“She was fiercely authentic and deeply generous,” the agency said.
“She brought an uncompromising spirit to everything she touched. Her art was a reflection of her soul: poignant, powerful, grounded in heritage and relentlessly innovative.”
Kathleen Allan, the artistic director of the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto and Chorus Niagara, called Ms. Derksen an “extraordinary artist, visionary composer and deeply generous human being whose work had a way of exposing raw and difficult truths while leading with compassion, humanity and hope.”
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Ms. Allan said a concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall on May 25 will be dedicated to Ms. Derksen.
Ms. Derksen, who lived in Toronto, told The Globe in an interview this spring that the beauty of being a composer is to “shine a light on whatever you think society should be thinking about.”
Recently, Ms. Derksen and two musicians from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, along with First Nations, Inuit and Métis patients at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, premiered a show entitled Still Here that drew on lived experiences of patients.
On Sunday, the Toronto Symphony said in a statement it is deeply saddened by Ms. Derksen’s death. It also described how she shared her “extraordinary artistry” with the community over the years.
The TSO added Ms. Derksen approached her work and everyone involved in it with “extraordinary compassion, curiosity and care.”
Mx. McKiver echoed this sentiment, saying they wanted to remember Ms. Derksen as a “bold, loving, uncompromisingly honest person.”
They also said their heart goes out to Ms. Derksen’s wife, who must now carry “unfathomable grief” following this crash, along with other loved ones and pets.
“I think of the significance of Cris returning home from her late father’s funeral - former chief Bernard ‘Bernie’ Meneen of Tallcree First Nation - with her cello and his ceremonial headdress accompanying her,” they said.
”May they both travel smoothly to being greeted by their ancestors.”
With reports from Brad Wheeler