Concert with Indigenous artist Mali Obomsawin

For this National Indigenous History Month the Ottawa Public Library invites you to enjoy a virtual concert with Mali Obomsawin. Mali is a bassist, singer-songwriter and composer from Odanak First Nation, and one of GRAMMY.com’s top ten emerging jazz artists to watch this year. Mali is joined by two steadfast collaborators, Magdalena Abrego (guitar) and Allison Burik (woodwinds), who will perform intimate arrangements from Sweet Tooth in addition to new explorations of this sonic landscape.

A suite for Indigenous resistance, the debut album from Wabanaki bassist, composer, and songwriter Mali Obomsawin flies in the face of Western tropes that insist Indigenous cultures are monolithic, trapped in time. Sweet Tooth blends Wabanaki stories and songs passed down in Obomsawin’s own family with original compositions for a performance that is at once intimately personal and globally pertinent. Highlighting centuries of clever adaptation and resistance in her own community, Obomsawin points toward abundant horizons for Indigenous peoples.

About the artist
Mali Obomsawin is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist and a citizen of Odanak First Nation (W8banaki). She is a bassist, composer, and vocalist whose work spans from jazz and roots music to film scoring, teaching, and indie-shoegaze. Mali is an international touring artist with her own projects and as an accompanist.

Her current projects include the shoegaze duo Deerlady, now supporting their latest release “Greatest Hits” (2024); the free-jazz band she leads under her own name, and the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band. Mali’s film score on the highly anticipated documentary Sugarcane (Nat Geo) directed by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie is also featuring at film festivals across the world throughout 2024.
Over the years Mali has been lucky to work with notable musicians including Esperanza Spalding, Taylor Ho Bynum, Peter Apfelbaum, Craig Harris, Bill Cole, Althea Sully-Cole, Susan Hagen, Tomas Fujiwara, Mike Formanek, among others…