Journey to the Indigenous Avant-Garde

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Event 05 / November 9

Also on the horizon

Sonny-Ray
Day Rider

November

2026 / Monday

Event image / MRU Theatre TicketsCalgary

Also upcomingFree admission

An Afternoon with Sonny-Ray Day Rider

Conversation and live music with the Blackfoot songmaker and composer from the Kainai Blood Tribe.

DateMonday, November 9, 2026

TimeDoors 2:00 p.m. · Event 2:30 p.m.

PlaceMount Royal University · Calgary

Sonny-Ray Day Rider works across a wide musical palette while bringing Blackfoot artistic and intellectual traditions into contemporary composition. He recently completed a Master of Music in composition at the University of Lethbridge, where his thesis project, The Blood Song Winter Count, received a Medal of Merit.

His works have been premiered and performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, National Arts Centre Orchestra, Luminous Voices, Kensington Sinfonia, and the Penderecki String Quartet. He has also served on the Indigenous Advisory Circle to Library and Archives Canada and continues as guest faculty at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

The afternoon pairs an on-stage conversation with a performance of musical pieces—an encounter with composition as story, history, experimentation, and living relation.

Reserve free tickets ↗ Organizers + supporters ↓

The afternoon / form

Talk. Listen. Perform.

Rather than separating discussion from artistic practice, the event places them side by side. The conversation offers a way into Day Rider’s compositional world; the performance lets that world unfold on its own terms. The result is less a conventional lecture than a public encounter between voice, musical form, place, and Blackfoot creative practice.

Organizers + support

Made possible by

Organized by

Jellybean Collective

The Jellybean Collective brings together Mount Royal University faculty working across anthropology, women’s and gender studies, art, care, kinship, and public-facing collaborative practice.

Jaime Waucaush-Warn

Gloria Pérez-Rivera

Celeste Pang

With generous support from

Partners + funders

Mount Royal University

Supporter

Office of Community + Belonging

Mount Royal University

Supporter

Faculty of Arts Endeavour Fund

Mount Royal University

Supporter

Office of Indigenization + Decolonization

QriTical

November 09 / 2026

Make an afternoon of it.

Admission is free thanks to the event’s funders. Reserve a ticket through Mount Royal University Theatre Tickets and join the Jellybean Collective for an afternoon of conversation, composition, and live performance.

Event + tickets ↗

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