Donita Large Addresses Grief and Trauma of Canadian Residential Schools With “Reconciliation Sky”
Indigenous blues singer/songwriter Donita Large’s soaring new single “Reconciliation Sky.” Inspired by the horrific 2021 news headlines that 215 unmarked graves had been uncovered at the Kamloops Residential School in British Columbia, Donita does what she describes as “the emotional labour of reconciliation work as an Indigenous person” through her music with this new song.
Donita’s own father is a survivor of a residential school (as well as several other Cree & Metis family members), and so she needed a way to process the feelings that flooded her when the Kamloops story made the headlines. Friends and colleagues contacted her immediately when the story broke because, by that point, Donita had already been long involved in teaching about the traumas wrought by the schools and assisting survivors with their interviews for Independent Assessment Process (IAP) claims for the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.
Because she already knew much of what was just now being covered in the news, the emergence of the truth on the world stage came as somewhat of a relief.
“I was fine, even a bit relieved,” Donita said. “I knew of the unmarked graves, and I was just happy for their relatives that these children were found.”
And yet she was aware that many people around her were not okay and that many Canadians were shocked and were finally paying attention.
“They were paying attention to residential school stories as survivor TRUTH,” she said, “and not just dismissing it as stories of legend and folklore.”
It was a complicated feeling – finally having the truth recognized but also dealing with the frustration and deep disrespect of not having been believed.
It had been a Spring of orange sunsets, and Donita stood in her home, looking out the window and trying to regulate her body and her thoughts in the evening glow. The words “Can you honour the bones of our children?” echoed in her heart, and she wrote the pieces that came.
Then, in August, thanks to the Edmonton Arts Council, Donita travelled to Toronto for a songwriting mentorship with Chris Birkett, known for his work producing several of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s albums as well as for being an accomplished songwriter, singer, and musician. While there, Donita decided she was ready to write a song that honoured her father’s story of going to residential school and the unmarked graves still being recovered at residential school sites.
During the song mentorship, Chris and Donita worked together to complete the lyrics and, with Chris’s multi-instrumentation, he built the layers of sound that were needed to create the foundation for Donita’s voice to belt out “Reconciliation Sky,” what will your eyes let you see?”. Donita arrived home in Edmonton and was fired up with excitement about the songs they had written and realized that this is the time that “Reconciliation Sky” should be heard. She decided that she wanted to release it during Reconciliation Week on the day that schools commemorate Orange Shirt Day and the day before what is now called the National Day of Truth & Reconciliation.
“We are in a time where people are still learning the truth, wrongs are still being righted, healing of intergenerational trauma is ongoing, and history is still unfolding as we honour the children who didn’t make it home,” Donita says.
Listen to “Reconciliation Sky” below and learn more about Donita Large via our mini-interview.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Hi, I’m Donita Large, a Cree singer/songwriter living in Amiskwaciwâskahikan (ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ) also known as Edmonton, Alberta. My home community is Saddle Lake First Nation, and I have lots of relatives from Moose Mountain in northeastern Alberta.
I’m a full-time educator, so It took the pandemic for me to realize that I needed to make space to record music. It was a now-or-never feeling. I’ve sang since my sweet little old Kokom (grandmother) used to yell at me to, as I came from a family of musicians. I started singing professionally in my early 20’s but had not focused my energy on my own music or my own storytelling. So in June of 2021, I released my first original, an Indigenous blues song. If you are a blues fan, know there will be more blues to come. The second song I released is a world rock song, which has inspired me to continue on this musical path I’m now on. I want to complete an album and create a tour that honours the stories and teachings of my ancestors.
You’ve been featured before. Tell us what’s been going on since the spring.
Well, I got to hit up some music festivals, which was wicked! I got some great guys backing me up too. I introduce us as Donita Large & The Small Band. I want to shout out Anthony King, Alan Tymofichuk, and Barry Martin for backing me up on some killer shows.
It is so great to have live music return, so many happy audiences, and bigger stages have such great sound. I also decided that I wanted to continue songwriting and working with my Producer Chris Birkett. Thanks to an Edmonton Arts Council grant, I was able to do just that. I wrote some new originals, including the song I just released, “Reconciliation Sky.” I recently had the opportunity to sing it at the Nuit Blanche festival in Toronto at the beginning of October.
Tell us about working with such a producer legend like Chris Birkett.
I had the privilege of working with Chris for a week in August in Toronto at his home studio. We hadn’t met in person for our first single release together of “Ancestors in My Bones.” At the end of each day of working with Chris, I would sit down and just be amazed, “wow, that just happened,” were the words that would come to mind. We wrote four songs in four days, and not just lyrics but kick-ass demos!
He is so easy to work with and down to earth. He’s also mega-multitalented as a musician. I came in one day and said I want to write a hard rock song, do you want to shred? I shared some lyrics, and then he just started to build the musical layers starting with percussion and bass, and when he pulled out his electric guitar, it was like being at my own rock concert. We had so much fun in the studio. I’m so appreciative that he makes room for indie artists like myself and that we are working towards an Ancestors album together.
Chris not only brings a wealth of contemporary music expertise but as Chris laughs humbly, he’s been well-trained by Buffy. Having worked with Buffy Sainte Marie on five of her albums and ongoing projects, Chris has an understanding of Indigenous sounds, vocables, and instruments which allows us so much freedom in our creative expression to create the music we are developing.
Who was the first artist to knock you out?
Patsy Cline. When I was a kid, we used to listen to her songs as we drove to the city from our reserve. I loved the way she crooned a song, and I would sing along at the top of my lungs. I won a few talent shows with some of those songs!
What’s the one album by a Canadian artist that everyone should have in their collection?
Any album by Cindy Paul, but if I had to pick just one, I would say “The Flight.” Cindy is so talented; her voice calms me, and her songwriting makes me reminisce. There are so many talented Indigenous artists starting to be featured. It’s an exciting time. I want to support Indigenous artists whenever I can as I have realized that the world has only heard a small fraction of the Indigenous voices that span all genres of music.