The road home

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This article was published 11/04/2024 (825 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Famously born in a snowbank in northern Manitoba, internationally renowned Canadian playwright/novelist/musician Tomson Highway lives life in the key of laughter.

And Winnipeggers will be given a rare opportunity to hear the award-winning artist’s joy-filled songs and stories from his illustrious life when the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg caps its 130th anniversary season with Tomson Highway: A Musical Journey, a gala champagne brunch on Saturday at Assiniboine Park’s the Leaf.

The event also marks an auspicious homecoming for Highway. The then-23-year-old musician garnered top prize in the WMC Scholarship Competition in 1974, receiving a $500 award — a career-boosting fortune in those days — in recognition of his prodigious gifts as a classical pianist.

WMC’s former president, Canadian philanthropist Tannis Richardson, presented the cheque to the starry-eyed artist dreaming of establishing a career as a professional musician.

The gala has been in the planning stages for more than two years.

WMC committee chairwoman Alison Baldwin reached out to Highway in February 2022, daring to hope the in-demand artist might be available to reunite with the local organization a half-century later.

Highway replied the next day, saying he would be delighted to return to the group, which nurtured his youthful artistry and continues to encourage the next generation of professional musicians through its wide-ranging initiatives. (One of those is the biennial WMC McLellan Competition for Solo Performance with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra; the finals, including cash prizes totaling $20,000, will be Thursday, April 18, at 7:30 p.m. at Jubilee Place Auditorium, 180 Riverton Ave.)

“WMC is proud and delighted to welcome home Tomson Highway, an international Canadian icon in the music and literary worlds,” Baldwin says. “That he should remember that achievement, 50 years later, and so generously return to perform for the WMC 130th is remarkable and thrilling.”

“The Women’s Musical Club is a wonderful organization and I love them dearly,” Highway, now 72, says over the phone from the Gatineau, Que., home he shares with his life partner, Raymond Lalonde.

“They made me believe the world was my oyster, and I could do anything I wanted. I was infinitely grateful for that award and used it very, very wisely. It gave me the confidence to go on and excel at whatever I do.”

And excel he did. Highway, who is Cree and a member of the Barren Lands First Nation, would become one of Canada’s most revered playwrights. His groundbreaking plays The Rez Sisters (1986) and Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing (1989) skyrocketed him to international fame for their unique blend of wit and evocative Native American mythology.

Highway also became the first Indigenous writer to be inducted into the Order of Canada in 1994. He has received 11 honorary doctorates and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (2022), among numerous other accolades and awards.

He’s fluent in “about seven” languages — including his mother tongue, Cree, which he describes as a “laughing language,” French and English — and continues to write, teach, lecture and perform across Canada and around the world.

His legacy includes plays, musicals, children’s books and cabaret songs, as well as his memoir Permanent Astonishment, published in 2021, chronicling his younger years as the 11th of 12 children born to legendary caribou hunter and world champion dogsled racer Joe Highway and Pelagie Cook, an equally accomplished bead-worker and quilt-maker.

And yes, he really was born in a hastily pitched tent in a snowbank on an island near the borders of the Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan and (now) Nunavut on Dec. 6, 1951.

Yearning for greater opportunities and a formal education for his children, his father voluntarily put the six-year old Highway and his late brother Renée on a bush plane for a residential school in The Pas.

“He did it willingly, happily and proudly, and told us to get on that plane and show them how to do it,” Highway recounts, crediting his time at the boarding school for helping him master English, as well as play piano. “He gave us the courage to be brave and do extraordinary things.”

Highway subsequently attended Winnipeg’s Churchill High School, before studying English literature at the University of Manitoba. He earned a music degree in piano performance from the University of Western Ontario in 1975, followed by a bachelor of arts one year later.

His writing career began to soar age 30, after a seven-year stint as a social worker on First Nations reserves and urban centres across Canada.

Highway’s palpable joy and lightness of spirit bubbles like a wellspring; his conversation is peppered with such words as “beautiful” and “love.” He’s humble about his astonishing career, saying simply, “I’ve been lucky.”

“The fact is that all my life I’ve been surrounded by beautiful people, full of kindness and love. I was always admired. I was always encouraged. I worked very hard and excelled because I’ve had extraordinary teachers,” he says, professing a passion for watching classical music videos via YouTube.

He also credits his parents’ 60-year marriage for creating a firm foundation that has inspired him throughout his entire life. “My parents had the kind of marriage they can only dream about in Hollywood,” he says.

Among the many dignitaries attending Saturday will be the Hon. Anita Neville, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. Another notable guest will be Richardson, and their emotional reunion promises to leave no eye dry.

“It was very special for me being part of the Women’s Musical Club, as they are quite extraordinary,” says Richardson, who turns 98 this summer.

”My goodness, they’ve had Glenn Gould, Rachmaninoff and so many others perform on their stage,” she says, recalling the luminaries who been a part of the organization’s 130-year history; the WMC’s treasure trove of archival programs reads like a who’s who of classical music history.

Following the buffet brunch, which includes a champagne reception, raffle and door prizes, guests will be treated to a program of cabaret songs from Highway’s own productions, including Kisaa-geetin Means I Love You and Taansi from his 2003 musical comedy Rose, the third instalment in his “rez” series.

He promises fun and laughter, describing his own artistic journey as “a magic carpet ride of the very first order.”

“My father gave me a very optimistic personality, and whatever he touched turned to gold,” the artist says, before adding one final, philosophical grace note. “We all have a limited time left on this planet and we have to maximize that. And so my duty is to bring joy wherever I go, and to let people know that we are here for a good time, and we have not a very long time left to do that.

“My parents were laughers and laughed all the time. Wherever I go, I also want to make people laugh, and show them how to be positive and turn their lives into a spectacular experience. The most beautiful music in the world is the sound of laughter.”

holly.harris@shaw.ca