Cree vocalist heading to Grammys after stop at Carnegie Hall

Advertisement

Advertise with us

It’s a season of momentous achievements for Rhonda Head.

Read this article for free:


or

Already have an account? Log in here »

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Subscribe and receive a limited-edition Free Press branded hat or tote.

Digital Subscription

One year of digital access for only $205*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles

*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.

To continue reading, please subscribe:

Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional

$1 for the first 4 weeks*

  • Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
  • Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
  • Access News Break, our award-winning app
  • Play interactive puzzles
Start now

*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/11/2024 (659 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s a season of momentous achievements for Rhonda Head.

Earlier this month, the mezzo-soprano from Opaskwayak Cree Nation found out an album she contributed to had been nominated for a Grammy Award.

The Fury by Ecuadorian musician Antonio Vergara is up for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Head’s vocals are featured on the track The Muse of Midnight.

“I ran upstairs to share with my sister and I burst out laughing like the Joker; I was shaking and it took a while to settle,” she says of her reaction to the nomination.

“It’s very, very exciting and I’m really grateful to him for reaching out to me.”

Head, who lives in The Pas, is one of several international vocalists included on the album. She’s not exactly sure how Vergara found her, but suspects it has something to do with her connection to the Recording Academy — an association of music professionals who cast ballots to determine the Grammy winners each year. Head has been a voting member since 2017. It appears years of hustling are beginning to pay off.

“I’ve been going to the Grammys for a couple of years and, you know, I’ve been doing a lot of networking. My voice is getting out there,” she says.

Head will return to the award show in 2025, which takes place in Los Angeles on Feb. 2, to celebrate with the other Fury collaborators. It will be her first time meeting Vergara in person, since she recorded the vocals remotely.

This weekend, Head is in New York for another career-defining moment.

On Sunday, she takes the stage at Carnegie Hall for a choral performance of Handel’s Messiah conducted by Jonathan Griffith. It will be Head’s third time performing at the iconic New York concert venue and her first accompanied by four young guests from the Arts for Manitoba Indigenous Youth Choir.

SUPPLIED
                                Mezzo-soprano Rhonda Head, an award-winning vocalist from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, has contributed to a Grammy-nominated album.

SUPPLIED

Mezzo-soprano Rhonda Head, an award-winning vocalist from Opaskwayak Cree Nation, has contributed to a Grammy-nominated album.

The singers — Ava Meconse, Avery Pelletier, Ja’Kiera Lynch and Georgianna Blacksmith — are between the ages of nine and 12 years old and will take the stage with 200 other choristers for the show hosted by Distinguished Concerts International New York.

It’s a dream come true for Head, who is passionate about mentoring the next generation of Indigenous musicians.

“I always say I’m a peppercorn in a sea of salt on that stage and I’m happy there’ll be five peppercorns this year,” she says with a laugh.

“I’m so extremely proud of the youth that are coming with me.”

The group has been practising together over Zoom and Head has been trying to prepare the kids for their moment in the spotlight.

“I’ve been giving them pep talks about owning your space, because it is intimidating. I keep telling them, ‘You belong on that stage,’” she says.

It’s a message Head wished she had received when she was starting out in the 1980s. A classically trained vocalist who has received dozens of awards and enjoyed international acclaim, she’s also encountered her fair share of racism in the largely white world of classical music.

SUPPLIED
                                Rhonda Head (front) will perform in Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall this weekend with Arts for Manitoba Indigenous Youth Choir members Ava Meconse (from left), Avery Pelletier, Ja’Kiera Lynch and Georgianna Blacksmith.

SUPPLIED

Rhonda Head (front) will perform in Handel’s Messiah at Carnegie Hall this weekend with Arts for Manitoba Indigenous Youth Choir members Ava Meconse (from left), Avery Pelletier, Ja’Kiera Lynch and Georgianna Blacksmith.

“They couldn’t stop me from returning; I kept coming back because I absolutely love classical music,” says Head.

Through mentorship, she hopes to inspire young up-and-coming artists to follow their passion for the artform.

“I wish somebody told me to own my own space, to give me that extra confidence to continue to be here.”

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Eva Wasney

Eva Wasney
Reporter

Eva Wasney covers environmental issues in Manitoba for The Narwhal in partnership with the Winnipeg Free Press. Read more about Eva.

Every piece of reporting Eva produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.

Report Error Submit a Tip

More Stories

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Carol Sanders 8 minute read Preview

Manitoba abandoning spring, fall clock changes

Carol Sanders 8 minute read Updated: Yesterday at 8:48 AM CDT

Time’s up for the time change in Manitoba.

Manitobans won’t be setting their clocks back an hour in November. The province has decided to permanently stay on daylight time after surveying residents on the twice annual clock adjustment.

“We heard from Manitobans loud and clear — no more changing the clocks in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release Thursday.

Most of the 72,000 votes submitted in an online EngageMB survey — 92 per cent — said they would like to see the practice end. The survey asked if they preferred earlier sunrises in winter with standard time or the later sunsets in summer with daylight time. More than half of survey participants (58 per cent) indicated a preference to stay on permanent daylight time; 34 per cent voted to eliminate the time change but stay on standard time.

Read
Updated: Yesterday at 8:48 AM CDT

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Preview

‘She was looking to destroy me’: convicted harasser faces new charges

Dean Pritchard 6 minute read Thursday, Sep. 17, 2026

When Agnieszka Ciochon-Newton moved into the 55-plus apartment building on Stradbrook Avenue last year, she came across as “timid, soft-spoken and sensitive,” said building manager Tanya Owen.

Little did Owen know the meek-looking 58-year-old woman would soon turn her life and the lives of many of her tenants upside down and threaten her career and family.

“She was looking to destroy me for a simple tenant disagreement,” Owen said Thursday.

Court records show Ciochon-Newton was arrested earlier this month and charged with seven counts of criminal harassment, two counts of uttering threats and one count each of fraud, breaking and entering, attempting to obstruct justice, intimidation of a justice official, mischief and defamatory libel.

Read
Thursday, Sep. 17, 2026

Former Bombers linebacker Gauthier enjoying career as electrician

Taylor Allen 6 minute read Preview

Former Bombers linebacker Gauthier enjoying career as electrician

Taylor Allen 6 minute read Yesterday at 12:44 PM CDT

Most professional football players don’t ride off into the sunset on their own terms.

Shayne Gauthier was well aware of that, but it didn’t make it sting any less when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers informed the veteran linebacker that they weren’t bringing him back for 2026.

“I was really hoping to play one more (season) because it would have been my 10th season, so, I’d say it didn’t really end the way I wanted,” Gauthier recently told the Free Press.

“It left a little sour taste in my mouth, but that’s part of pro sports. If everybody got the ending that they wanted, then it wouldn’t really work.”

Read
Yesterday at 12:44 PM CDT

Desperate Poilievre wants Canadians to believe the sky is falling when it’s just cloudy outside

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Preview

Desperate Poilievre wants Canadians to believe the sky is falling when it’s just cloudy outside

Tom Brodbeck 5 minute read Yesterday at 12:47 PM CDT

Pierre Poilievre has a problem.

Canadians just don’t seem to be paying much attention to him anymore.

So, naturally, the Conservative Opposition leader has decided to turn up the volume.

At a recent party caucus retreat in Penticton, B.C., Poilievre delivered the familiar message: Canada is in trouble, Canadians are hurting and the Liberal government is making everything worse.

Read
Yesterday at 12:47 PM CDT

Jets GM insists club’s not working under any deadline in netminder’s trade request

Mike McIntyre 7 minute read Preview

Jets GM insists club’s not working under any deadline in netminder’s trade request

Mike McIntyre 7 minute read Thursday, Sep. 17, 2026

Connor Hellebuyck and his family were subject to so much post-Olympic vitriol that both the Winnipeg Jets security team and even police had to get involved.

Read
Thursday, Sep. 17, 2026

Cabernet Sauvignon star of wine festival

Ben Sigurdson 6 minute read Preview

Cabernet Sauvignon star of wine festival

Ben Sigurdson 6 minute read 3:00 AM CDT

The Winnipeg Wine Festival will celebrate the king of red wine grapes next weekend — the theme of this year’s festival, which takes place Sept. 25 and 26 at the RBC Convention Centre, is Cabernet Sauvignon.

Cab Sauv, as it’s also known, is the world’s most widely planted wine grape of any colour, first coming to prominence in the 1800s in France’s Bordeaux region, where the grape is still popular. Rather than single-variety wines, Bordeaux reds tend to be blends, with those coming from the left bank of the Gironde estuary being Cabernet-dominant, while right-bank wines are Merlot-dominant, with Cabernet Sauvignon playing a supporting role. Cabernet and Merlot work well together and many other countries have followed suit in blending the two.

A team at University of California Davis put Cabernet Sauvignon through a DNA test in 1996 and discovered its parent grapes are Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc — it’s likely that at some point the two varieties, planted next to each other in some vineyard, crossed and mutated and became the grape we know today. (Someone growing grapes in the 19th century must have had an inkling of what was up, as the grape has been called Cabernet Sauvignon since long before the DNA test.)

Flavour-wise, most Cabernet Sauvignon wines are big and bold, with a core of deep dark berry flavours, some graphite and spice notes and relatively bright acidity. It’s a grape that is well-suited to barrel aging, with most examples seeing at least some time in wood.

Read
3:00 AM CDT