Deantha Edmunds is Canada’s first Inuk professional classical singer. She was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2023 for her activity as a performer, writer, composer, and mentor, work which seeks to empower Indigenous people and share their stories. She is currently based in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
In June 2024, Deantha was named Arts Newfoundland and Labrador’s “Artist of the Year.” Her work has international reverberation as well as community integrity, and she brings a level of professional excellence to Canada’s Indigenous art scene that is unique and important.
In August 2024, Leaf Music released “Alikeness” which features Deantha performing her original song-cycle “Angmalukisaa” with Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Sinfonia, conducted by Mark Fewer. She has also released three solo albums. The most recent, “Connections,” recorded with the Atlantic String Quartet, won the 2022 Music NL awards for Classical Album of the Year, and Indigenous Artist of the Year. “Connections” was also nominated for a 2023 East Coast Music Award. Her EP “My Beautiful Home” (2019) and full-length CD “Pillorikput Inuit: Inuktitut Arias for All Seasons” (2016) also garnered ECMA nominations.
Deantha performs with professional ensembles across Canada and abroad. In October 2024, she was a lead actor, soloist, and music director for “Nsituninal: Our Voices,” a Newfoundland and Labrador Year of the Arts project of Indigenous Performing Arts NL, which toured the province presented by the Arts and Culture Centres. Her concert “Inuit Connections” with New Orford String Quartet and throat-singers Sylvia Cloutier and Nancy Mike opened the 10th Anniversary Season of the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts in Kingston, Ontario in September 2024. Earlier in 2024, Deantha was a guest soloist at Tuckermore Chamber Music Festival, Camber Arts Festival, HarbourVOICES International Festival of Collective Singing, and the Scotia Festival of Music. She also collaborated with the Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto in “Songwalks: Braiding Voices,” the final event of their 50th season. In 2023, Deantha’s solo concert opened Toronto Summer Music in the Garden’s season on National Indigenous People’s Day. She performed at the opening night gala of the 2023 Stratford Summer Music Festival. In the fall of 2023, Deantha was a featured soloist with the Netherlands Chamber Choir in the world premiere of “Flights of the Angakok” by Austrian-American composer Lera Auerbach in Amsterdam. Her contribution to the internationally acclaimed “Messiah/Complex” with Against the Grain Theatre and Toronto Symphony Orchestra helped garner the production a 2022 JUNO nomination, and the project also won the first ever Opera America Digital Excellence Award.
Other notable appearances include singing at the opening ceremony of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021, performing for His Holiness, Pope Francis in Iqaluit at the official apology to Inuit residential school survivors in 2022, and singing the Nunatsiavut anthem for King Charles III at the St. John’s welcome ceremony of the 2022 Canadian Royal Tour which focused on Reconciliation.
As one of Canada’s official delegates at the Opera Europa conference in Copenhagen, Denmark in October 2023, Deantha had the opportunity to introduce her opera “Irngutaq,” the first opera written and composed by an Inuk.
Deantha has been an Artist-in-Residence focusing on “Reconciling through Music” at University of Toronto Faculty of Music, Acadia University School of Music, Memorial University of Newfoundland School of Music, Grenfell School of Fine Arts, Bishop’s University Department of Music, and The Don Wright Faculty of Music at Western University.
Creating original works, collaborating with other musicians, contributing to Indigenous productions, and mentoring young artists, Deantha shares her voice and vision with her whole heart, and is drawing accolades from across Canada and the world.