Latest / Almost Famous Enough / ep5 Cris Derksen does her job

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ep5 Cris Derksen does her job · Almost Famous Enough

• 0:24
  Cris Derksen is a career artist, a career musician, as in she has made a career for herself as both an artist and musician.
• 0:33
  And maybe those don't need distinction, but Cris Derksen says she is just doing her job.
• 0:40
  And maybe that won't strike you as odd, but I have a lot of career artist friends who definitely don't refer to it as just doing their job.
• 0:49
  Not in the same sense as if they went to work every day as an ER nurse or construction worker doing their job.
• 0:57
  But that's definitely how Cris delivered it.
• 1:01
  Cris Derksen is a two spirit, Juno nominated artist from Treaty 8 Territory in Northern Alberta.
• 1:07
  The credentials are too long for my typical intro.
• 1:11
  Known for a truly unique and blended style, she brings classical music and traditional indigenous music together.
• 1:19
  Making it with her signature electronic fused cello playing and composition.
• 1:24
  She is an original artist with the groundbreaking orchestral powwow as part of her personal discography, as well as a sought after composer and performer from the chamber orchestras and symphonies across Canada to Carnegie Hall, all just part of the job.
• 1:44
  My name is Glenn Erickson.
• 1:45
  This is Almost Famous Enough.
• 1:48
  Thank you for spending your time with us.
• 1:50
  This is Cris Derksen.
• 2:09
  Glen Erickson: Uh, thank you, by the way.
• 2:11
  Glen Erickson: Um,
• 2:11
  cris derksen: Yeah, I'm Yeah.
• 2:17
  Glen Erickson: Um, so it's been a while since you and I have talked.
• 2:21
  Glen Erickson: we have our own unique version of history together, which I'm sure we're going to like cross paths on our conversation about, but, um, yeah, I don't think I've seen you since the love is a battlefield, shows that we're.
• 2:33
  Glen Erickson: Touring around here, I think was 2021, uh, maybe.
• 2:37
  Glen Erickson: So.
• 2:38
  Glen Erickson: You in my history, I think of you as hailing from Edmonton, although your history is more obviously tied to, uh, northern Alberta, right?
• 2:48
  Glen Erickson: And, um, your Treaty 8 heritage.
• 2:51
  Glen Erickson: So, um, have you, do you get to come back here very often?
• 2:57
  Glen Erickson: Is your mom, Lisa, still in Edmonton?
• 2:59
  cris derksen: Yeah, she's in Sherwood Park.
• 3:01
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 3:03
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 3:03
  Glen Erickson: Diving into it.
• 3:04
  Glen Erickson: I'm really interested, Cris in just digging into your own story, right?
• 3:09
  Glen Erickson: The whole arc of your journey as, uh, as an artist and an artist reflecting the person you are and who you've become and Um, I think the unique parts of your artistry and how those opportunities showed up would be, I think really interesting and educational for other people who are looking at that.
• 3:27
  Glen Erickson: It's not the typical, even for me, the typical that I have most of my history with are, you know, Bands and people hitting the road and playing bars back and forth and, uh, version of musicianship and you've sort of taken a blended approach in your career.
• 3:45
  Glen Erickson: And I think blended is maybe a bit of a theme for you.
• 3:49
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 3:49
  Glen Erickson: So, I mean, going all the way back, you just.
• 3:51
  Glen Erickson: Talked about, know, your mom having this really strong Mennonite, background.
• 3:55
  Glen Erickson: If anybody listening doesn't know what that means, it's, it's very homesteady.
• 4:01
  cris derksen: It's like, my grandparents were so strict, like, Oh, it's called any midnight.
• 4:05
  cris derksen: It's so strict.
• 4:06
  cris derksen: It's kind of like the Amish.
• 4:07
  cris derksen: Um, that's like the easiest way to describe it.
• 4:09
  cris derksen: Um, and
• 4:11
  Glen Erickson: Without the colonization picture that I think a lot of people have from the American Amish.
• 4:16
  Glen Erickson: Teenagers going wild television shows that you see now, right, but still a very, very, very traditional community based, like, violating of the community was essentially like violating a A law of God kind of thing.
• 4:33
  Glen Erickson: So they just, there was that tightly considered and like lives in breeze out of Southern Manitoba seems to be the heartbed of where all of this, and then they spread out across, uh, the country.
• 4:44
  Glen Erickson: But, so what's interesting to me is like, so you have.
• 4:48
  Glen Erickson: a mother who has come out of this very strong obviously like Caucasian mother of I'm sure some maybe German descent is an easy assumption if it's Mennonite.
• 5:01
  Glen Erickson: Uh, as far as like Canadians always seem to have to reference which Part of some continent of Canada we came from since we all showed up here.
• 5:12
  Glen Erickson: And, and, um, but then you have your, your father's side as well.
• 5:17
  Glen Erickson: And I'm, uh, I'm curious because this is, is gonna play into the blend of who you are, which is amazing.
• 5:23
  Glen Erickson: And, uh, I, I'm sort of curious about where did that start?
• 5:27
  Glen Erickson: Like how did they.
• 5:28
  Glen Erickson: Uh, meet, did they get together?
• 5:31
  Glen Erickson: And my story knowing you was only as the child of a single parent, right?
• 5:35
  Glen Erickson: So I never met your father.
• 5:36
  Glen Erickson: So I don't know how he plays into the so much.
• 5:40
  Glen Erickson: I'm wondering if you could give me a little bit of that background.
• 5:43
  cris derksen: Yeah, so my dad is a Cree, uh, he comes from North Talcrete Reserve.
• 5:47
  cris derksen: Uh, he comes from like a line of chiefs.
• 5:50
  cris derksen: So, um, so my grandfather's chief, my great great grandfather's chief, there was hereditary chiefs and now they're voted in.
• 5:57
  cris derksen: So, uh, currently my Dad is not chief, but my uncle Frank is chief.
• 6:02
  cris derksen: So it still seems to be like a bit of a family business.
• 6:05
  cris derksen: Um, I didn't grow up on the res.
• 6:07
  cris derksen: Uh, I grew up mostly in Edmonton.
• 6:09
  cris derksen: Um, and I would spend my summers and winters up, uh, up visiting both sides of the family.
• 6:16
  cris derksen: And they're so dichotomous, like they're so opposite from each other.
• 6:20
  cris derksen: Um, I grew up like when I was five, we're getting into some music things.
• 6:25
  cris derksen: When I was five, my mom, uh, she gave up her car funds.
• 6:30
  cris derksen: Cause when I was three, I told my mom I wanted to play the flute.
• 6:32
  cris derksen: And so my mom knew enough that she was like, no, she needs a piano.
• 6:36
  cris derksen: Piano is a basic.
• 6:37
  cris derksen: So she gave up her car fund to get me a piano.
• 6:39
  cris derksen: And at that, that time she also gave up our TV.
• 6:44
  cris derksen: Um, so I grew up without a TV and.
• 6:47
  cris derksen: It was like going to the res, um, I remember like so vividly, like watching Harry and the Hendersons for the first time.
• 6:55
  cris derksen: And when the, like the Sasquatchy guy, like, like jumps in front of the car, I jumped so high.
• 7:02
  cris derksen: Cause I like, didn't have a TV.
• 7:04
  cris derksen: Then I didn't watch TV.
• 7:05
  cris derksen: I didn't know how to watch TV.
• 7:07
  Glen Erickson: You weren't desensitized from jump scares in
• 7:10
  cris derksen: Exactly.
• 7:11
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 7:11
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 7:11
  cris derksen: I was,
• 7:12
  Glen Erickson: even though it was a comedy, not a horror.
• 7:14
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 7:15
  cris derksen: Um, and then, so like, So from this kind of really contemporary, like, like very modern kind of life with on the res, and then going to visit my grandparents, um, on the other side and in which I had to wear the dresses that they make with the puffy sleeves.
• 7:34
  cris derksen: And like, there's absolutely no TV and like no radio really.
• 7:38
  cris derksen: Like it was, uh, They didn't have running water until I was like seven up there.
• 7:44
  cris derksen: They're really, it's really like, um, kind of like living in the past.
• 7:48
  cris derksen: And so going between the two communities was super dichotomous and super weird.
• 7:54
  cris derksen: And like, also very different from my city life too.
• 7:59
  cris derksen: Um, so
• 7:59
  Glen Erickson: was, was that causing, I guess I'm curious what that was sort of creating in you.
• 8:05
  Glen Erickson: in you as those years start, probably you start approaching towards your adolescence and then, you know, forming a lot more self identity.
• 8:13
  Glen Erickson: I'm curious what that sort of dichotomous upbringing was creating in you.
• 8:18
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 8:19
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 8:20
  cris derksen: I think we have to get a little bit deeper too.
• 8:21
  cris derksen: Um, on my gram.
• 8:23
  cris derksen: Parent's side.
• 8:25
  cris derksen: So, um, and this plays, oh, sorry about that.
• 8:28
  cris derksen: This plays into the music a lot.
• 8:30
  cris derksen: So I, I get questioned a lot being like, where's your Mennonite side of, of your music?
• 8:36
  cris derksen: And, uh, to be honest, the Old Colony Mennonites, they didn't have music.
• 8:42
  cris derksen: Like that was not part of what they did.
• 8:44
  cris derksen: So, Yeah,
• 8:46
  Glen Erickson: and music making?
• 8:48
  Glen Erickson: Or are you just like
• 8:51
  cris derksen: also like, um, in church, like the men on one side, women on the other, uh, they would like, it would kind of be like these chanty things, but here's the thing.
• 9:00
  cris derksen: There's no, it was not written down.
• 9:02
  cris derksen: There's no notes on a page for them.
• 9:04
  cris derksen: It would just like, whoever was the leader of the day would start on a tone and everyone would find that tone.
• 9:12
  cris derksen: And then he'd like, recite whatever poetry thing.
• 9:15
  cris derksen: Um, and, and the audience like follows him, but like,
• 9:21
  Glen Erickson: response kind of?
• 9:23
  cris derksen: but it was like, um, not even like, they would like follow the notes.
• 9:27
  cris derksen: So when he would change notes, everyone would change notes so much later that it was just like, chaos and very hard for my poor little brain to understand.
• 9:38
  cris derksen: And then on top of that, we, so we have this like very uncomfortable, you're like two by fours, women on one side, men on the other.
• 9:44
  cris derksen: Like, it's not, not an ideal situation for an eight year old.
• 9:48
  cris derksen: And then this terrible, terrible music.
• 9:51
  cris derksen: Um, but also here's the kicker is that my grandmother was so, so, so racist, uh, against indigenous people.
• 9:59
  cris derksen: Um, So when I was born and my mom phoned home to be like, you're a grandparent.
• 10:05
  cris derksen: I'm the eldest cousin.
• 10:06
  cris derksen: Uh, My grandma didn't ask if I was a boy or a girl.
• 10:11
  cris derksen: They asked if uh, if I was red or white.
• 10:14
  cris derksen: Um, and my mom said red and so then was immediately excommunicated.
• 10:21
  cris derksen: So there's like this This racism that I grew up with, um, against me, um, is definitely does play into how I steer my music and how I steer, um, you know, I always do say I'm half Cree and half Mennonite, and I think, and I like to call myself a Creenonite, it's a cute little joke, and I always do.
• 10:45
  cris derksen: I am like, I am half and half and I do need to, I do need to represent half and half, but, uh, I'm not going to bring up a lot of these intense stories to a regular audience.
• 10:56
  cris derksen: Cause that's a lot, that's a lot for regular people to understand.
• 11:00
  cris derksen: Um, so, uh, a lot of my perception and a lot of my music work making comes from the indigenous perspective.
• 11:10
  cris derksen: Um,
• 11:11
  Glen Erickson: Um, uh, okay, well, I'm not afraid of the intense stories, uh, or however they play into making you who you are in that Yeah, I think that there's a lot of interest to me and how somebody gets formed out of both sides and, uh, interesting to hear you speak sort of with a respect and a reverence of wanting to include both of that heritage into who you are right now.
• 11:36
  Glen Erickson: I mean, uh, that this is also the end of the 80s, like 80s into the, into the 90s, uh, we, we loosely use this term that was a different time then it probably gets used too much in a, passive way that shouldn't be used to, to get out of uncomfortable conversations, but it was so drastically, you know.
• 11:59
  Glen Erickson: different, right?
• 12:00
  Glen Erickson: In that, in that I have to remind myself when I feel shocked that someone was still using colors to talk about race,
• 12:09
  cris derksen: Mm hmm.
• 12:10
  Glen Erickson: That I had to remind myself how common still was only that that long ago in our human history, uh, in this part of the world.
• 12:20
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 12:21
  Glen Erickson: So, um, yeah, I find that a little bit shocking, but, uh, at the same time, I have to remind myself what it was like.
• 12:29
  Glen Erickson: So, I guess the part I'm really interested in still is, how was that sort of shaping?
• 12:35
  Glen Erickson: This like young person in Edmonton you know, where you're a child.
• 12:41
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 12:41
  Glen Erickson: Let me just put it this way.
• 12:42
  Glen Erickson: a single parent household, all those disadvantages that you're already having to deal with just in that sort of domestic situation.
• 12:51
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 12:52
  Glen Erickson: And then what most people might not see is how much you're wrestling with two very different.
• 12:57
  Glen Erickson: opposite senses of heritage and family
• 13:00
  cris derksen: Hello, everyone.
• 13:29
  Glen Erickson: that was, I think, very prevalent, uh, still in the
• 13:32
  cris derksen: Silence.
• 13:37
  Glen Erickson: what that was like for you.
• 13:39
  cris derksen: I mean, I always, it was always just a part of it.
• 13:43
  cris derksen: It was always just a, it didn't really feel like a struggle.
• 13:45
  cris derksen: It was just like what it was.
• 13:46
  cris derksen: Like, yes, I have a bad dad, but I have amazing aunties and like, I have amazing family.
• 13:52
  cris derksen: Um, so it wasn't like, um, yeah, it didn't really feel like that to me.
• 13:58
  cris derksen: Cause I was always like, I, I always knew who I was.
• 14:03
  cris derksen: I guess, so you know, sometimes ignorance is bliss, like
• 14:08
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, I mean, that's a great statement, Cris, like I met you in your teens.
• 14:13
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 14:15
  Glen Erickson: I guess right off the bat, I'll echo that I always felt like you had a really strong sense of who you were that was apparent in your, in your teens.
• 14:23
  Glen Erickson: And that's not a gift, uh, very many adolescents or have.
• 14:29
  Glen Erickson: And most of the ones I was meeting and working with, like, did not have that sense.
• 14:34
  Glen Erickson: It was, if I can be completely honest, it was even probably a little intimidating.
• 14:39
  Glen Erickson: Right for an adult to meet, uh, a young person who had a strong sense of identity and, I was not in a place at that time where I was prepared to deal with it Um, I mean, this is sort of a new podcast for me.
• 14:56
  Glen Erickson: I don't expect everybody to know story.
• 14:58
  Glen Erickson: I'm not ashamed of it.
• 14:59
  Glen Erickson: The story is not about me.
• 15:00
  Glen Erickson: It's about you, but, um, background is I worked at a church and I worked with teens and it was a very upper middle class church on the west side of Edmonton in northern Alberta, that was built on a lot of affluence and I was given a lot of freedom and opportunity.
• 15:19
  Glen Erickson: And, We've only briefly ever talked about this, but, you know, for me, like an indigenous young person in a single home was not average kid in that group.
• 15:32
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 15:33
  Glen Erickson: And, um, I was only in my mid to late twenties and despite how cocksure and ridiculously arrogant I was, I, I literally did not know what I was doing.
• 15:46
  Glen Erickson: And, um, so that for me was.
• 15:50
  Glen Erickson: You know, I was so blind to so many things, right?
• 15:52
  Glen Erickson: So, uh, so hearing you talk about that and say, like, I knew who I was, it immediately connects to me.
• 15:59
  Glen Erickson: Cause that's, that was my sense of you at that time.
• 16:02
  cris derksen: Yeah, and I think that's also like what's given me this career is that I've always known who I am.
• 16:08
  cris derksen: And I've always like had a strong, I feel like I have a strong moral compass, but I know the stories that I want to tell and, and, um, I think they're important and folks want to listen to them.
• 16:20
  cris derksen: And that's really cool.
• 16:22
  cris derksen: It's
• 16:22
  Glen Erickson: when did the transition for you, if you were very, very young, because you had an interest, you get a piano in your house, you're learning music theory.
• 16:32
  Glen Erickson: Uh, you don't have a TV, so maybe you're not getting inundated with pop culture.
• 16:36
  Glen Erickson: Um, so how does the transition to, you know, this instrument that's carried you around the world, the cello, when does that happen for you?
• 16:46
  cris derksen: Yeah, that was in grade four.
• 16:49
  cris derksen: Edmonton had a public school string program, so it was completely accessible.
• 16:54
  cris derksen: It was completely affordable for my single parent mother to put me into cello.
• 16:58
  cris derksen: Uh, the story is I came home with a piece of paper saying, does your son or daughter want to play violin, viola, cello, or bass?
• 17:04
  cris derksen: I wanted to play the bass.
• 17:06
  cris derksen: I thought the cool kids played the bass, but my mom's car was too small.
• 17:09
  cris derksen: Uh, she drove a little high end pony.
• 17:11
  cris derksen: And so This is how we got stuck with the cello.
• 17:15
  cris derksen: Um, and I'm so fortunate because the cello just has such a giant range and can be so many different things.
• 17:21
  cris derksen: And, uh, you know, it's really relatable.
• 17:24
  cris derksen: It's the same range as a human voice.
• 17:26
  cris derksen: You know, I've only met one person.
• 17:28
  cris derksen: This is, this is recently in Japan and he was like, I hate the cello, but I like the way you play it.
• 17:33
  cris derksen: And I was like, who hates the cello?
• 17:35
  cris derksen: I've never heard.
• 17:37
  cris derksen: Or anybody hate the cello.
• 17:40
  cris derksen: So, um, yeah,
• 17:43
  Glen Erickson: So it was pretty early on that that became your instrument, right?
• 17:47
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 17:47
  cris derksen: totally.
• 17:48
  cris derksen: And like in junior high and like when I knew you, um, like I'd be playing along to Nirvana and like, What was it?
• 17:57
  cris derksen: Pop, like, rock, Cristian rock groups.
• 18:00
  cris derksen: I just like play along to albums.
• 18:02
  cris derksen: Um, and that was like the beginning of me.
• 18:06
  cris derksen: Uh, that was like, yeah, maybe me like exploring what I wanted to do.
• 18:12
  cris derksen: Um, I was like,
• 18:13
  Glen Erickson: training, right?
• 18:14
  Glen Erickson: Like your
• 18:14
  cris derksen: totally.
• 18:15
  Glen Erickson: of ear training,
• 18:16
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 18:17
  cris derksen: Um,
• 18:18
  Glen Erickson: adjacent to like most guitar players who end up in bands.
• 18:22
  cris derksen: totally.
• 18:24
  Glen Erickson: same experience, right?
• 18:25
  cris derksen: Yeah, totally.
• 18:26
  cris derksen: And, uh, I knew that I, I knew a lot of things like, like I knew in grade 11, I went to a performing arts school in Edmonton, Vic, uh, and, uh, I was like in a class of like, you know, a thousand wannabe actors and I was the only cellist and I was like, Oh, if I want to be in the arts, um, this is the way I want to go, um, to get into university, uh, I had to take a year off, uh, cause I wasn't good enough yet.
• 18:54
  cris derksen: Because there's group lessons, right?
• 18:56
  cris derksen: Um, so, uh, I didn't get private lessons until grade 12, um, halfway through the school year.
• 19:02
  cris derksen: Um, so I took a year off and did, uh, two lessons a week and then got into university.
• 19:07
  cris derksen: And again, I, Knowing who I was, I didn't want to be like a desk musician, like an orchestra musician.
• 19:14
  cris derksen: I wanted to be a rock star.
• 19:15
  cris derksen: I wanted to play the folk fests.
• 19:17
  cris derksen: That was like my main goal.
• 19:18
  cris derksen: but I was like, I would need to play the cello good enough to play my own music so I can go play, uh, the folk fest circuit.
• 19:25
  cris derksen: Cause that was, you know, my goal at the time.
• 19:27
  cris derksen: So I come to the cello from like kind of a sideways positioning of like not Like I love classical music.
• 19:34
  cris derksen: I work in it now.
• 19:36
  cris derksen: Uh, and it's always been a part of me, but it's also like the classism of classical music was something I had a hard time with same with our church.
• 19:44
  cris derksen: Like the classism of our church was crazy.
• 19:47
  cris derksen: so I think.
• 19:48
  cris derksen: You know, as much as like my, I guess like ancestry develops me.
• 19:53
  cris derksen: So did the, you know, sort of poverty and so did like my perception of like how folks should be treated.
• 20:01
  Glen Erickson: Well, I have some questions there.
• 20:03
  Glen Erickson: I mean, there's two things I'm going to try to make sure I can remember to get to them about your path related to what you just said.
• 20:08
  Glen Erickson: So you first of all, I mean, you have this opportunity of going to the only performing art school at the time and for a long time in Edmonton, right?
• 20:16
  Glen Erickson: So there was only one opportunity for any student to have that which is in a sense an advantage, even though you're right.
• 20:23
  Glen Erickson: It was massively possible populated by students, right?
• 20:26
  Glen Erickson: Like theater kids, not as much music.
• 20:29
  Glen Erickson: Um, and that's the reason a lot of young people were going there or asking to go there, even if they weren't in the area or that, you know, but so you sort of have that advantage.
• 20:40
  Glen Erickson: I think was what you're identifying.
• 20:42
  Glen Erickson: But was there also the disadvantage, which maybe you're.
• 20:46
  Glen Erickson: Sort of suggesting in between the lines of, probably couldn't afford to go get private lessons that maybe a lot of other developing cellists or traditional, you know, orchestral instruments have, you know, get on that track pretty early, right?
• 21:03
  Glen Erickson: For private.
• 21:04
  cris derksen: Totally, totally.
• 21:05
  cris derksen: It's so early, like, uh, you know, I only taught for one year, but the, you know, the youngest kid was like, I think four and like the mother.
• 21:15
  cris derksen: was like, do you think this kid has a chance?
• 21:17
  cris derksen: And I'm like, they are four.
• 21:19
  cris derksen: Sure.
• 21:21
  cris derksen: They can do whatever they want.
• 21:22
  cris derksen: There's like, what?
• 21:24
  cris derksen: Um, so yeah, the, the, the world is quite, the classical world is quite strict, you know, similar to religion.
• 21:32
  cris derksen: Um, I think that's up to the human.
• 21:34
  cris derksen: I think that's
• 21:35
  Glen Erickson: you're probably feeling a little late in some way.
• 21:37
  Glen Erickson: So that was one, I think, point of interest, because what are the, I mean, even someone, a parent asking that question, I'm interested to know, like, what are, when someone's training like that, what are the opportunities?
• 21:51
  Glen Erickson: That are ahead of them.
• 21:52
  Glen Erickson: Like if somebody has been in some version of an instrument, classically trained, from time they're four or six or eight, like what's the trajectory of possibility for them?
• 22:05
  Glen Erickson: Or maybe you can say, what was it then versus what it is now?
• 22:11
  cris derksen: who's like behind the instrument and like where they want to take it, you know?
• 22:15
  cris derksen: Cause like, there's a bunch of trumpet players that are amazing jazz trumpeters.
• 22:19
  cris derksen: There's like, there's, there's so many different things you can do within music within that one thing.
• 22:25
  cris derksen: So like I had to go to classical music school because that's how I got, that's how you could get the training.
• 22:32
  cris derksen: There wasn't, there's not really jazz cello schools.
• 22:35
  cris derksen: I mean, there are jazz cellists, but there's not really jazz cello schools.
• 22:39
  cris derksen: Uh, and there's no like rock and roll school for cello.
• 22:42
  cris derksen: Um, which I probably would have taken.
• 22:45
  cris derksen: But I probably wouldn't have been as good, you know?
• 22:47
  cris derksen: so I think like the normal trajectory is that, yeah.
• 22:51
  cris derksen: And the other thing they don't teach you in music school is business.
• 22:55
  cris derksen: and they don't teach you like about, you know, now we hear about branding and being your own brand and blah, blah, blah, but like, they don't teach you that you just like, I've, my hat's been my brand, you know, for the last 20 years.
• 23:08
  cris derksen: And like, I took those extra business courses.
• 23:11
  cris derksen: I learned how to write grants.
• 23:12
  cris derksen: I knew that I wanted to, where I wanted to go and I knew that that path wasn't the regular path.
• 23:20
  cris derksen: Um,
• 23:20
  Glen Erickson: figure that out?
• 23:21
  Glen Erickson: When did you figure out like you needed to take courses or figure out the business part?
• 23:25
  Glen Erickson: Like how old, where was that in the,
• 23:27
  cris derksen: um, I did, okay, I did a couple of years at U of A, but, um, I was not very, I was a terrible student.
• 23:34
  cris derksen: I was like more of a bar star.
• 23:36
  cris derksen: I didn't relate to my classmates.
• 23:39
  cris derksen: Uh, most of them still lived at home.
• 23:42
  cris derksen: I was on my own by that point.
• 23:43
  cris derksen: and like their parents would like make their lunches and pick them up after orchestra.
• 23:47
  cris derksen: And I was like, what the heck?
• 23:48
  cris derksen: I've been living on my own for like two years.
• 23:51
  cris derksen: So it just wasn't the right space for me, wasn't the right place for me.
• 23:54
  cris derksen: I wasn't in the right place.
• 23:56
  cris derksen: Uh, so I took a year off and I did Canada World Youth, um, which brought me to Brazil and then, uh, to Vancouver again, and I had been spending some summers in Vancouver and, uh, It was like after Candleworld's Youth, I was like, no, I really want to be a cellist, and I really want to play the footfest.
• 24:17
  cris derksen: And, then I got into UBC, and then I cared.
• 24:21
  cris derksen: Um, but I had to like, kind of go through my own, um, Yeah.
• 24:26
  cris derksen: My own mistakes to get to the place of like wanting it really bad.
• 24:31
  cris derksen: Um, and like, yeah, I wanted it real bad.
• 24:34
  cris derksen: Like that was the only thing I wanted.
• 24:36
  cris derksen: And I couldn't for the life of me get a damn job, like a regular job.
• 24:42
  cris derksen: so I busked for like six months in Vancouver, um, which is like so hard.
• 24:47
  cris derksen: Like, it's so, it's hard on the soul.
• 24:50
  cris derksen: Um, and then, But then I did get back into university.
• 24:52
  cris derksen: I got into UBC.
• 24:53
  cris derksen: And that's when I was like, I want to play the folk fest.
• 24:56
  cris derksen: This is why I'm here.
• 24:57
  cris derksen: I'm going to get it really, really good.
• 24:58
  cris derksen: So I worked my ass off and got really, really good.
• 25:01
  Glen Erickson: So busking paid the bills?
• 25:04
  Glen Erickson: Like, how hard did you have to, like, how long did you have to sit out there?
• 25:09
  Glen Erickson: And, uh,
• 25:11
  cris derksen: I mean, yeah,
• 25:15
  Glen Erickson: of the art museum?
• 25:16
  Glen Erickson: Is it on Granville?
• 25:18
  Glen Erickson: Like, where's, where was the best spot to earn the best,
• 25:22
  cris derksen: yeah, the most, the most money I made, I think it was Canada day morning.
• 25:29
  cris derksen: I went to English Bay.
• 25:30
  cris derksen: Um, and like.
• 25:32
  cris derksen: All the old people and I just like played Bach and played some dirts and things and like the, the birds would all come swim around and watch.
• 25:41
  cris derksen: And I think I made like 500 bucks that day, which is pretty good.
• 25:44
  Glen Erickson: pretty good.
• 25:44
  Glen Erickson: That's a
• 25:44
  cris derksen: That's a pretty good day.
• 25:45
  cris derksen: And I was like, also like, that was like 20, what?
• 25:49
  cris derksen: 22, 23, 23
• 25:50
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 25:51
  cris derksen: years ago.
• 25:51
  Glen Erickson: it.
• 25:52
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 25:53
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 25:53
  cris derksen: So I was like in my twenties and like, I lived in a big punk house and my rent was super affordable.
• 25:58
  cris derksen: and.
• 25:59
  cris derksen: Yeah, it was good times.
• 26:01
  Glen Erickson: of all of that is super punk.
• 26:03
  Glen Erickson: I mean, you know what I mean?
• 26:04
  Glen Erickson: Like,
• 26:05
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Glen Erickson: age.
• 26:06
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 26:07
  Glen Erickson: the age for it, which I think is fantastic and hilarious at the same time.
• 26:11
  Glen Erickson: So you're obviously starting to progress through what your options might be.
• 26:16
  Glen Erickson: And, uh, I was curious where that stage and you just identified was where you sort of really decided to pursue it, whether that was happening high school, like when I knew you, but I didn't know all of that about your life or whether that sort of happened, um, a little bit later, which I think it does for a lot of people to get to that point where it's like, really, when you say like, I want it bad enough.
• 26:39
  Glen Erickson: I think it's important.
• 26:40
  Glen Erickson: You hear that a lot, right?
• 26:42
  Glen Erickson: About musicians, like you can watch every season of American Idol and they all seem to want it like nothing else, but we all know from experience.
• 26:50
  Glen Erickson: Once you get into it, like, are you willing to busk months and do whatever you have to do?
• 26:56
  Glen Erickson: Are you willing to sacrifice every other thing
• 27:00
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 27:01
  Glen Erickson: for this?
• 27:02
  Glen Erickson: Uh, just what it takes, right?
• 27:05
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 27:05
  cris derksen: And like, yeah.
• 27:06
  cris derksen: The, to be a touring musician and like, to be gone from your family, like so, so much is wild.
• 27:14
  cris derksen: Like, you know, I'd like hanging out.
• 27:17
  cris derksen: I, uh, I was so lucky though.
• 27:18
  cris derksen: Like, so, uh, in university, a friend, I had already played the Vancouver Folk Fest and this friend who hired me for that was like, Hey, Cris, who do you want to play with next?
• 27:28
  cris derksen: And I was like, Tanya Tagak, and she's an Inuit Tutsi girl, and my, my friend made it happen.
• 27:34
  cris derksen: My friend made, brought Tanya to Vancouver.
• 27:37
  cris derksen: We did like a gig with a bunch of different folks.
• 27:40
  cris derksen: Um, and me and Tanya caught on like house on fire.
• 27:44
  cris derksen: Um, and then I started touring with her.
• 27:46
  cris derksen: So like before, when I did my grad recital, the next day I went.
• 27:51
  cris derksen: To, I came to Toronto to record, no, to Ottawa to record, uh, at the NAC.
• 27:58
  cris derksen: And then we went to Spain like the next day.
• 28:01
  cris derksen: I like, I was,
• 28:03
  Glen Erickson: like her, like supporting her music, like playing
• 28:06
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 28:07
  Glen Erickson: if you're okay.
• 28:08
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 28:08
  cris derksen: And like, I don't know if folks know Tanya's music at all, but Tanya is a thousand percent only, she only improvises.
• 28:16
  cris derksen: I think I've had like, maybe like two rehearsals with her ever in life.
• 28:19
  cris derksen: Um, Uh, so it's like just complete improvisation and complete like balls to the wall you're thrown in.
• 28:26
  cris derksen: Uh, you know, I learned how to listen really good.
• 28:30
  cris derksen: I learned a lot from Tanya.
• 28:31
  cris derksen: I learned how to not tour.
• 28:33
  cris derksen: I learned how to, um, I learned how to pay people properly.
• 28:38
  cris derksen: Um, cause I was just a side musician and you know, it's a struggle man to getting like three 50, a gig and, but, and like 50 bucks per DM or something.
• 28:49
  cris derksen: And, but you're in Europe, right?
• 28:51
  cris derksen: Like, so you're like, it's kind of spending as much as you're making at that point.
• 28:55
  cris derksen: Um,
• 28:55
  Glen Erickson: Well, I think it's interesting.
• 28:58
  Glen Erickson: You can probably shed a little more light on this too.
• 29:01
  Glen Erickson: cause I think a question a lot of people will often have about music when they hear people telling their story I don't know if you've sat through, you know, like keynotes or they bring musicians up and they get interviewed and I'm often, my brain is.
• 29:14
  Glen Erickson: Going always between the lines of like, okay, so that's an awesome story, but how do you get that?
• 29:21
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 29:21
  Glen Erickson: So you just say like you got a chance to meet Tanya who you really wanted to and side note, Uh, I find that super impressive because balls to the wall is a great way to describe her because she's fierce Like i've always used the word fierce
• 29:34
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 29:34
  Glen Erickson: I would be it would be intimidating Even more so now realizing how much would be Improvised that to be that fierce improvisation is it's just another level.
• 29:47
  Glen Erickson: So tagging around with that, it would be, um, very intimidating.
• 29:52
  Glen Erickson: Uh, your self confidence, obviously that we talked about earlier, let's do a play through in, in, you know, in your twenties, being able to pull that off.
• 30:00
  Glen Erickson: But let me back that up even a little more.
• 30:02
  Glen Erickson: Cause you said while you're at UBC studying, you get a chance to play.
• 30:08
  Glen Erickson: At the Vancouver Folk Fest.
• 30:09
  Glen Erickson: So how do you get that gig at that age in still a very much development phase?
• 30:15
  Glen Erickson: How do you get that gig?
• 30:17
  cris derksen: Um, you know, I, I'm a big believer in like putting things out there and like being like, I want more of this.
• 30:24
  cris derksen: Like, I don't do a five year plan.
• 30:26
  cris derksen: I find that too esoteric.
• 30:29
  cris derksen: Um, but I, I am definitely like, I want to do more of that.
• 30:33
  cris derksen: So like, currently my, my things are like, I want to write more symphonies.
• 30:37
  cris derksen: So like just putting that out in the wall, into the world and into your mind.
• 30:41
  cris derksen: And it's like, kind of amazing how that happens, how things help for me.
• 30:45
  cris derksen: Like that's really worked for me is like, knowing that I've always wanted to do that, you know, getting my name out there.
• 30:52
  cris derksen: I also, when I was graduating from university, Cirque du Soleil came knocking at my door and being like, Hey, do you want to go to China to work on this cello project?
• 31:01
  cris derksen: Um, and I was like, that sounds nice Cirque du Soleil, but no, I need to make my name, uh, here in Canada.
• 31:07
  cris derksen: I need to make my name at home first.
• 31:10
  cris derksen: So I, Worked on making my name, you know, you play this.
• 31:14
  Glen Erickson: you said, no,
• 31:16
  cris derksen: I said no to Cirque du Soleil.
• 31:17
  cris derksen: Yeah, so I could run around with Tanya
• 31:22
  Glen Erickson: that's pretty ballsy, Cris.
• 31:23
  Glen Erickson: That's, that's pretty incredible.
• 31:25
  cris derksen: Yeah,
• 31:26
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 31:26
  cris derksen: yeah,
• 31:27
  Glen Erickson: while you're with UBC, you end up a chair position with the symphony in Vancouver.
• 31:33
  Glen Erickson: So how, where, where did that sort of happen and land?
• 31:38
  Glen Erickson: Cause that's a pretty significant thing
• 31:41
  cris derksen: yeah,
• 31:41
  Glen Erickson: think as well.
• 31:42
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 31:43
  cris derksen: yeah, like I like I said, I worked my I got, I got real good.
• 31:47
  cris derksen: I wish I was that good still.
• 31:48
  cris derksen: Um, but, uh, the, yeah, to get it, it was just, you know, they have subs.
• 31:55
  cris derksen: So profs will bring kids in and bring folks in that are capable of doing the work.
• 32:00
  cris derksen: Um, do you know, what's interesting about symphonies now is that like, You learn those symphonies in university.
• 32:06
  cris derksen: So when you are subbing in or like symphony players in Vancouver, they've been playing the same music since university, like in generally, you know, like Beethoven's ninth, like we all played it in first year.
• 32:20
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 32:21
  cris derksen: So yeah.
• 32:22
  Glen Erickson: that makes a lot of sense.
• 32:24
  Glen Erickson: So I guess, uh, yeah.
• 32:26
  Glen Erickson: So part of my interest then, because what you're like, you said, like, lately, you've been in the classical world, it's employing you, it's paying a lot of bills, but and I want to sort of pull that apart a little bit as we go.
• 32:37
  Glen Erickson: But, um, maybe this is a part of, and we're already sort of Digging into the question I asked earlier about sort of how you get into, like, what are the options for people who are classically trained?
• 32:51
  Glen Erickson: Um, because there's a certain set of options that I think
• 32:56
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 33:08
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 33:20
  Glen Erickson: I don't, I don't know what the careers are, but.
• 33:24
  Glen Erickson: It feels like they're a lot smaller in the of composition.
• 33:30
  cris derksen: Yeah, I mean, it's a composition is a pretty competitive field.
• 33:34
  cris derksen: I think like what's the problem is, is there's.
• 33:38
  cris derksen: No, there's not the same kind of funding for composition as there is for like, it's up to the orchestra.
• 33:47
  cris derksen: And so like everyone's short on dollar bills.
• 33:51
  cris derksen: and the commissions are the first thing to go.
• 33:55
  cris derksen: And so it's like a super competitive field.
• 33:57
  cris derksen: It's also like pretty niche.
• 33:58
  cris derksen: There's no, there's not, you know, there's not a,
• 34:01
  Glen Erickson: things here, right?
• 34:02
  Glen Erickson: Like there's compositions of like commissioned, I think.
• 34:09
  Glen Erickson: And like, how big a part is that in, in the world of, you know, symphonies around the different cities or, or just the classical community that's obviously so distinct from the pop or even indie world, right?
• 34:25
  Glen Erickson: So how big a part does that play?
• 34:27
  Glen Erickson: Cause you've.
• 34:28
  Glen Erickson: Like, if I read your bio list and your Wikipedia, right, like, it's littered with things that, you know, you were either commissioned to play or a lot of composition, a lot of writing and full transparency, like.
• 34:42
  Glen Erickson: I'm going to try to let you name them.
• 34:44
  Glen Erickson: Uh, I'd be so embarrassed to butcher some of the words and the names here,
• 34:49
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 34:50
  Glen Erickson: so yeah, tell me a little bit about that world of either commissions and compositions in the classical world
• 34:56
  cris derksen: Um, They are, like I said, like symphony ones are just so hard to get.
• 35:01
  cris derksen: I call them a unicorn gigs because they, there's just not a lot of opportunities for them.
• 35:06
  cris derksen: There's just not a lot of money for it.
• 35:08
  cris derksen: Um, so every time I get one, it's like, I'm doing real good.
• 35:12
  Glen Erickson: was love is about a field.
• 35:13
  Glen Erickson: One of those.
• 35:14
  cris derksen: yep.
• 35:15
  cris derksen: Love is a battlefield.
• 35:16
  cris derksen: I've, there's a piece called Parkdale that's just three minutes that TSO commissioned, Rebellion, the Thunder Bay Symphony.
• 35:24
  cris derksen: That was like a collab between Thunder Bay Symphony and, uh, DCMF, which is, uh, the, it's a high school in Thunder Bay that brings in, uh, Indigenous kids.
• 35:35
  cris derksen: remote communities that don't have high schools.
• 35:38
  cris derksen: So it's like the fly in school.
• 35:40
  cris derksen: Um, so that's like pretty, pretty rough, uh, rough and tumble school.
• 35:43
  cris derksen: And, uh, they brought me in for four days and I hung out with some.
• 35:49
  cris derksen: Very angsty teenagers, and, and their guitars.
• 35:53
  cris derksen: And we wrote, um, a little symphony piece called Rebellion.
• 35:56
  cris derksen: It's so cute.
• 35:57
  cris derksen: It's, it is like, it's so angsty.
• 36:01
  cris derksen: It is so 16 year old.
• 36:04
  cris derksen: Um,
• 36:04
  Glen Erickson: Nirvana ear training came in handy for you.
• 36:07
  cris derksen: totally.
• 36:08
  cris derksen: And then, uh, then the big one, which is Control Burn, um, commissioned by Yannick, and it's against, um, All right, zits again.
• 36:18
  cris derksen: Uh, and then I have a new one, TSO for 2026.
• 36:24
  cris derksen: I start writing it In 25.
• 36:27
  Glen Erickson: that's part of a question I wanted to ask there.
• 36:29
  Glen Erickson: Without you, I'm not asking you to divulge numbers, but I think lot of people would be curious.
• 36:35
  Glen Erickson: So if you land one of these unicorn pieces, how big a chunk is that taking out of your life?
• 36:41
  Glen Erickson: To, to, to do it, um, and how long does it usually span and how, I guess an easier way to put it is like how big a part of what you're, for lack of a better term, annual income or what you pull together, where does that sit?
• 36:58
  Glen Erickson: Is that a big piece?
• 36:59
  Glen Erickson: Is it not as big as people would think?
• 37:00
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 37:05
  cris derksen: league of composers has, uh, uh, recommended things.
• 37:09
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 37:10
  cris derksen: they have like a recommended number.
• 37:11
  cris derksen: So it's like about a thousand bucks a minute that you get paid for symphony, symphony gigs, and then it like goes down.
• 37:17
  cris derksen: So like chamber music is less, it goes out.
• 37:20
  cris derksen: Like how many, how many parts do you have to write is kind of how you get paid.
• 37:24
  cris derksen: so, and.
• 37:25
  cris derksen: You know, pieces they come for me.
• 37:29
  cris derksen: The actual writing is faster than the concept.
• 37:34
  cris derksen: I think I like spend a lot of time being like, what am I going to say?
• 37:38
  cris derksen: What is my concept?
• 37:39
  cris derksen: What is like, what am I trying to say?
• 37:41
  cris derksen: What's the story here?
• 37:42
  cris derksen: I'm not, I'm not just sitting down and, you know, making things pretty.
• 37:47
  Glen Erickson: speak speaks to artistry, right?
• 37:49
  cris derksen: yeah, yeah, like, uh, and I, I need the story to know where I'm going to go with the piece too.
• 37:55
  cris derksen: So that part takes a long time, but then like the actual sitting down with it, it's like, that can be like two weeks or something, three weeks.
• 38:02
  cris derksen: if I work at it like every day and I kind of like for that kind of work, I do like concentrated time on it.
• 38:08
  cris derksen: So like where it's like, I, this month is only this, um, which is like rare in my world.
• 38:14
  cris derksen: Cause I'm.
• 38:14
  cris derksen: I do film and, uh, documentary, I do a lot of documentaries, um, and then like podcasts and like random things come up.
• 38:23
  cris derksen: Um, so I'm often working on more than one thing at once, which can get confusing for my brain, I guess, um, to be like, where's my focus?
• 38:33
  cris derksen: I prefer to like work on something like three, like for a month or three weeks and then move on.
• 38:40
  Glen Erickson: okay.
• 38:41
  Glen Erickson: Let me, uh, I'm going to jump back because I like going back and staying on a timeline.
• 38:45
  Glen Erickson: So would I, uh, pull a couple of things together?
• 38:49
  Glen Erickson: So you're great.
• 38:51
  Glen Erickson: Finishing up at UBC, you're actually getting your degree.
• 38:55
  Glen Erickson: You've spent a few years in this.
• 38:56
  Glen Erickson: I'm all in, this is the most important thing phase, but you want to be a rock star, you're putting it out there in the universe, you're getting opportunities like touring with Tanya Taggart, um, and you're developing your own thing.
• 39:11
  Glen Erickson: And this is really what you're known for.
• 39:14
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 39:14
  Glen Erickson: And, uh, What I
• 39:17
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 39:30
  Glen Erickson: training yourself to Nirvana and others.
• 39:33
  Glen Erickson: Um, and the desire to sort of compose your own version, blending electronic instruments, looping a cello, which the first time I heard you do that.
• 39:46
  Glen Erickson: I was so blown away.
• 39:48
  Glen Erickson: And, and I think a lot of people now should continue to go and check out all your works and be blown away because they just don't see it anywhere else in any practice.
• 39:58
  Glen Erickson: So when did that start developing?
• 40:01
  Glen Erickson: Like when did this version of your own artistic expression start to develop
• 40:06
  cris derksen: Yeah, I had a roommate, Bronwyn, in university at UBC, and she had a loop station and I borrowed it and never gave it back.
• 40:16
  cris derksen: and it, like, I took to it like, it was so fast, it was so easy.
• 40:20
  cris derksen: I could like, write my own like, symphonies by myself, I, I just, I fully understood it.
• 40:25
  cris derksen: and again, like wanting to take the cello and myself out of this like high class stuffy, rule based world to, I wanted to bring the cello to street level to, you know, make it relatable.
• 40:42
  cris derksen: So yeah, it was like, uh, like 20 years, 20, 22 years ago, I think when I first got my first loop, or when I stole my first loop station.
• 40:50
  Glen Erickson: your first loop station?
• 40:53
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 40:53
  cris derksen: And then, uh, and then the, the other pedals came pretty quick after it.
• 40:57
  cris derksen: Like I, By the time I did that gig with Tanya, I had already moved loop and multi effect pad um, with the cello.
• 41:06
  cris derksen: And that's still like my basic setup is like the loop, the multi effect, the multi effect pad, and then like a drum machine or something, some percussion.
• 41:14
  Glen Erickson: would imagine some people would maybe ask, or you've been asked the question of whether like just the desire to use that sort of technical equipment to sort of just, expand what you could create.
• 41:26
  Glen Erickson: Was the complete sort of modus operandi or was there any influence of electronic music, which uses these tools, obviously, was there any of that coming in or were the tools just a part of, um, An ends to a means or means to an end.
• 41:45
  Glen Erickson: I should say.
• 41:46
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 41:47
  cris derksen: I mean, there's a, there's a few folks like Joran, she's Quebec, uh, cellist.
• 41:54
  cris derksen: She was using some stuff, uh, on the cello that I really liked.
• 41:58
  cris derksen: And then, you know, Apoctalyptica is like, they're like a heavy metal cello band, uh, that were influential.
• 42:05
  cris derksen: And then, but, uh, It was like me just finding the things and then finding people afterwards.
• 42:09
  cris derksen: So like, I, I was already looping and then I, you know, heard about Owen Pellett and, uh, Final Fantasy at the time.
• 42:17
  cris derksen: And like,
• 42:17
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 42:18
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 42:18
  cris derksen: Uh, so it was like, I was already doing it and then I was seeking out other folks that were also doing it, I guess.
• 42:26
  cris derksen: Um, but I, I now famously do not listen to music, uh, anymore.
• 42:33
  cris derksen: Cause it's like, you know, my nine to five.
• 42:36
  cris derksen: Um, is
• 42:37
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 42:38
  Glen Erickson: I mean, that's pretty common, right?
• 42:40
  Glen Erickson: So, well, let me just before I jump back to something else, just sidebar that comment.
• 42:45
  Glen Erickson: I think that's an interesting comment that people would be curious about, where.
• 42:50
  Glen Erickson: Your inspirations now come from.
• 42:52
  Glen Erickson: I think it's very common.
• 42:53
  Glen Erickson: All of us, regardless of which discipline in music, you know, our teens to our twenties, we're trying to recreate everything that meant something so deeply and passionately to us.
• 43:04
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 43:04
  Glen Erickson: And we just want to, we want nothing more than two things to recreate one of those things and make somebody else feel it.
• 43:11
  Glen Erickson: The way we felt it.
• 43:12
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 43:12
  Glen Erickson: And we want to be kind of part of the fabric of
• 43:16
  cris derksen: mm-hmm
• 43:16
  Glen Erickson: that were big stars to us were.
• 43:18
  Glen Erickson: Well, now.
• 43:20
  Glen Erickson: So now you're Cris Derksen, you know, 20 years later, who's part of the fabric.
• 43:25
  Glen Erickson: So what, what's inspiring you influencing if you're not listening to music the same way, which is completely normal.
• 43:31
  Glen Erickson: I
• 43:33
  cris derksen: I always look at it as like, I am a jeweler.
• 43:36
  cris derksen: Like, um, so I take little bits and pieces of, of things I like.
• 43:42
  cris derksen: I like.
• 43:42
  cris derksen: It's impossible not to listen to music, you know, it's impossible to close our ears.
• 43:47
  cris derksen: So, you know, my wife listens to lots of music and I therefore listen to whatever she is listening to.
• 43:55
  cris derksen: Um, and I just try to not get overly influenced, but, I'll take little bits and pieces of, of sounds that I like and blend it together to make my own bracelet.
• 44:05
  cris derksen: You know, it's like, I, Often I'm like, it's like braiding for me, like braiding the past and the present and the future together.
• 44:14
  cris derksen: braiding things that I like into the work that I'm doing.
• 44:17
  cris derksen: bringing in my indigenous heritage along with like the classical training, but adding a little bit of hip hop beats.
• 44:24
  cris derksen: Cause I like the 808, you know?
• 44:26
  cris derksen: yeah,
• 44:27
  Glen Erickson: talked about this to someone recently as well, um, because I'm somebody who even at my age, I only really to new music still.
• 44:37
  Glen Erickson: I, I never go back and dig up old things.
• 44:40
  Glen Erickson: I have my classic rock, like everybody, uh, of what I will keep playing.
• 44:44
  Glen Erickson: That meant something to me for 30 years, but, but I have a friend who like, Is a musician who said the same, essentially the same thing, right?
• 44:52
  Glen Erickson: Like I don't really listen to anything.
• 44:54
  Glen Erickson: So of course I'm curious and I ask, and they similarly, but the way they sort of described it, it was like all those soundtracks are playing in my head.
• 45:02
  Glen Erickson: It's just math.
• 45:03
  Glen Erickson: I've got years of soundtracks.
• 45:06
  Glen Erickson: I don't need to, you know,
• 45:08
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 45:08
  Glen Erickson: have room for more, or I've got so many things to pull from the way you
• 45:13
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 45:14
  Glen Erickson: Rating or making a bracelet,
• 45:16
  cris derksen: Mm hmm.
• 45:16
  cris derksen: Mm
• 45:34
  Glen Erickson: music between 2010 and 2015.
• 45:38
  Glen Erickson: So.
• 45:39
  Glen Erickson: What was happening during that phase was your mind, looking back on it now, do you feel like there was sort of a very narrow, like blinders of what you wanted to come out of that in releasing original music and CDs like that and, developing a very great performance, I think at the time, right, which was, I'm sure you were experiencing people's, I don't want to say shock or awe, but a lot of people hadn't seen what you were doing, period.
• 46:08
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 46:08
  cris derksen: hmm.
• 46:08
  Glen Erickson: So you had to have been feeling that even in the moment on the stage or when you talk to people after.
• 46:14
  Glen Erickson: So what, what's happening in that phase of making CDs like a rock star or a regular aspiring median
• 46:22
  cris derksen: Canadian.
• 46:23
  cris derksen: Canadian, India artist.
• 46:24
  cris derksen: Um, you know, like, yeah, I've.
• 46:27
  cris derksen: I think the goal back then, like I said before, the goal only was just folk fest.
• 46:33
  cris derksen: I just, I just wanted to like party.
• 46:36
  cris derksen: Like I want to party all summer long.
• 46:39
  cris derksen: Um, and I want to get paid.
• 46:42
  cris derksen: I, I love the folk fest because they also have that improvisation, uh, moment with the, this shared stages of when all these different artists are just thrown on the same stage and You never know what's going to happen.
• 46:56
  cris derksen: I love those moments.
• 46:57
  cris derksen: Those are like, I live for those moments.
• 46:59
  cris derksen: Those like moments of connecting with somebody that you don't know at all, or maybe don't even speak the same language with, and like creating something together.
• 47:08
  cris derksen: I think that's so beautiful and so magical.
• 47:10
  cris derksen: And like, And such a gift to be able to do it.
• 47:14
  cris derksen: I think like, yeah, the first two albums were very similar and, um, it's great.
• 47:18
  cris derksen: Like, and I was definitely like defining my own sound, I think is how they say it.
• 47:22
  cris derksen: Um, um,
• 47:24
  Glen Erickson: sure.
• 47:25
  Glen Erickson: It's very obvious.
• 47:26
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 47:27
  cris derksen: And.
• 47:28
  cris derksen: And, you know, those, those two albums still get licensed so much.
• 47:33
  cris derksen: Like, I can't even tell you how many requests we get to license the first two, or the first album.
• 47:38
  cris derksen: Like, it just, it's wild.
• 47:40
  cris derksen: and it's amazing that it's lived that long too, like 20, 10,
• 47:45
  Glen Erickson: do you mean?
• 47:46
  Glen Erickson: Are it like various or are you talking to
• 47:50
  cris derksen: like TV shows.
• 47:51
  Glen Erickson: in productions and TV and
• 47:53
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:53
  Glen Erickson: music things?
• 47:54
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 47:54
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 47:54
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:54
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:55
  cris derksen: TV shows.
• 47:55
  Glen Erickson: kind of sync stuff that's
• 47:57
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:58
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:58
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 47:58
  cris derksen: Um,
• 47:59
  Glen Erickson: powwow is a different step.
• 48:01
  Glen Erickson: You were trying something very intentional with
• 48:04
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 48:04
  Glen Erickson: that develop for you?
• 48:06
  cris derksen: Well, that came out of like sitting on so many different art juries and, uh, realizing there's so much classical music that was quasi indigenous, but they didn't have an indigenous lead in it.
• 48:17
  cris derksen: They didn't have an indigenous composer.
• 48:19
  cris derksen: The story was indigenous, but like, like there's like this one going homestead that the.
• 48:26
  cris derksen: It's a ballet, and the ballet, the choreographer wasn't Indigenous, and like, it turns out that the storyteller, Joseph Boyden, was also non Indigenous.
• 48:34
  cris derksen: So like, uh, I was sitting, and there's like all these huge projects going through, and like, getting white men to, To compose it.
• 48:43
  cris derksen: And I'm like, no, man, like we can, we can do that.
• 48:46
  cris derksen: I can do that.
• 48:46
  cris derksen: Let, let me do that.
• 48:48
  cris derksen: And so that's how Orchestral Powwow came to be.
• 48:51
  cris derksen: And, um, I was like friends with the Hulus Nation tribe called Red Boys.
• 48:56
  cris derksen: Um, so, um, I met the, so I'm using the same for that project.
• 49:03
  cris derksen: I was using the same library as a tribe called Red.
• 49:06
  cris derksen: And instead of cutting it all up as they do, uh, I kept those, uh, powwow pieces.
• 49:13
  cris derksen: intact and then wrote symphonic music around it.
• 49:16
  cris derksen: And that was, it was always like, um, meant to be, it was just meant to be like a, a concept project.
• 49:23
  cris derksen: but we do tour it now.
• 49:25
  cris derksen: It's crazy.
• 49:26
  cris derksen: It does get toured.
• 49:27
  cris derksen: Um, Um, but it's, yeah, for me that it was just about like, no, it's like lay off, hands off indigenous stories, like let the indigenous people tell their own stories.
• 49:41
  cris derksen: So,
• 49:42
  Glen Erickson: timely.
• 49:43
  Glen Erickson: I think in Canada, don't you think like 2015 and then 2016, if you start touring it, you gave it legs, right?
• 49:50
  Glen Erickson: It got a lot more life than just a normal album release cycle, quote unquote,
• 49:55
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 49:56
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 49:57
  Glen Erickson: after that, that you have Gordon Downey trying to like publicly shed some more light on you What you talked about before, like the water situation that was still happening on reserves around Canada, that ridiculousness the way the government had ignored promises.
• 50:15
  Glen Erickson: So I felt like a lot of that was blowing up in Canada.
• 50:19
  Glen Erickson: Were you feeling you were getting pulled up in to that based on what you were trying to do?
• 50:27
  cris derksen: definitely.
• 50:28
  cris derksen: I definitely like, you know, I've known Jeremy Dutcher since before Jeremy Dutcher was Jeremy Dutcher, you know, there's like a,
• 50:36
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 50:36
  Glen Erickson: You've already, you've dropped two Polaris winners now already in the interview.
• 50:40
  Glen Erickson: So
• 50:40
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 50:41
  cris derksen: Like, like the indigenous community is small, right?
• 50:45
  cris derksen: Like we know, we kind of know everybody, uh, that's in the arts.
• 50:48
  cris derksen: And so I think all of us, um, got busy.
• 50:53
  cris derksen: Got busier and then, uh, with the release of the Orchestral Pow Wow, that's, that led me back to classical music.
• 51:00
  cris derksen: So it was like that thing that proved that I could compose nice things, that led me back into getting commissions.
• 51:09
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 51:09
  Glen Erickson: I mean, and yeah, so I, I'm glad you said that, uh, my outside again, observation, right, is that you had this timeline of you were creating your own sound and you, you took a pretty standard Canadian indie artist route for somebody who wanted to be a rock star of.
• 51:26
  Glen Erickson: Recording albums and releasing them.
• 51:28
  Glen Erickson: And in a sense, trying some version of a touring cycle and performance cycle and album cycles.
• 51:34
  Glen Erickson: And then that's the last album released technically like that, that you've had.
• 51:38
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 51:39
  Glen Erickson: So, um, but in that time, you're making those aspirations, coming at it from a different way than the typical Canadian indie artist, uh, who's, you know, uh, I, you talking to people or thinking in your mind, I need to get a manager and then I need to get a, a booking agent like the typical way and, and land a publicist and is there a label that puts this out and I have to secure all these and then do I need a lawyer?
• 52:05
  Glen Erickson: Are you going through those same typical Canadian indie artist
• 52:10
  cris derksen: Yeah, a little, yeah, a little bit, um, but not really see.
• 52:14
  cris derksen: Um, I had, I was just working with one manager for, um, I think we worked here for like 12 years, um, and she got Parkinson's and had to retire.
• 52:25
  cris derksen: so I, I am.
• 52:26
  cris derksen: I've been always just kind of like insular in that way.
• 52:29
  cris derksen: Um, I don't F with labels, because I own all of my music a hundred percent on both sides and I really value that.
• 52:39
  cris derksen: I am I am the producer of the album.
• 52:41
  cris derksen: It is my, it is my baby.
• 52:43
  cris derksen: It is nobody else's baby.
• 52:44
  cris derksen: Um, I want all of the pie.
• 52:46
  cris derksen: So, uh, I have, I've always stepped away from label conversations.
• 52:52
  cris derksen: I now currently have, I have two people now.
• 52:55
  cris derksen: This is kind of funny.
• 52:56
  cris derksen: Like I've got one person, uh, Kim, uh, from high priestess, um, publishing.
• 53:02
  cris derksen: And so she does all of my, all my TV and licensing things.
• 53:06
  cris derksen: So, uh, this year, I've done one feature film score, a Nat Geo documentary, and I'm about to start another documentary.
• 53:15
  cris derksen: So she takes.
• 53:16
  cris derksen: All of those contracts, like all of the TV film contracts, as well as all of the sync stuff.
• 53:22
  cris derksen: And then I've got Nikki from AIM, agency as my person, like my, my performer agent.
• 53:30
  cris derksen: And then she's, but she's also doing the commissions, which I'm basically telling her what to do.
• 53:37
  cris derksen: Yeah, yeah,
• 53:39
  Glen Erickson: all your performance bookings
• 53:41
  cris derksen: yeah,
• 53:41
  Glen Erickson: touring and doing arrangements and all that kind of stuff.
• 53:44
  Glen Erickson: So yeah, so at this point you sort of have a bit of a team and you've figured out
• 53:49
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 53:49
  Glen Erickson: need along the way.
• 53:51
  Glen Erickson: Obviously, I think that's a big part of it.
• 53:53
  Glen Erickson: I think it's interesting you mentioned earlier, early on, you know, nobody teaches the business.
• 54:00
  Glen Erickson: of it.
• 54:00
  Glen Erickson: Like it's not until 14, I'm in a role with Alberta music.
• 54:06
  Glen Erickson: The, the provincial industry associations in Canada are figuring out that they need to step in and fill this gap of development of artists.
• 54:15
  Glen Erickson: Cause there is none of that kind of stuff.
• 54:17
  Glen Erickson: So we're building programs that do that kind of thing.
• 54:20
  Glen Erickson: But you in your self confidence and self awareness all along have probably just decided to.
• 54:30
  Glen Erickson: Take those reigns and figure them out yourself, for
• 54:34
  cris derksen: it's, it's all relationships, right?
• 54:36
  cris derksen: It's all about making friends and like, I don't, it's not,
• 54:40
  Glen Erickson: sure.
• 54:41
  cris derksen: it is not networking.
• 54:42
  cris derksen: It is making friends.
• 54:43
  cris derksen: You actually have to make friends and it's about that, like building those relationships that are like, you know, and keeping them and keeping them and like, don't not burning any, any bridges, like, you know, All right.
• 55:02
  Glen Erickson: I I'll be really honest with you.
• 55:04
  Glen Erickson: So the reason I'm doing a podcast is because I'm sitting on 20 plus years of touching every part of the music business.
• 55:12
  Glen Erickson: I've had people say, well, you should.
• 55:15
  Glen Erickson: Or I'm like, I don't read books, so why would I do that or write a blog and nobody reads blogs?
• 55:21
  Glen Erickson: But, but I, I would love to.
• 55:23
  Glen Erickson: So that's why I'm here, right?
• 55:24
  Glen Erickson: I'm like, I, I would
• 55:25
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 55:32
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 55:38
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 55:45
  cris derksen: Okay.
• 55:52
  Glen Erickson: then I want to try to translate it for myself.
• 55:54
  Glen Erickson: So that development part.
• 55:57
  Glen Erickson: You had to become, know, the business manager of Of your business and figure out how to kind of do these things.
• 56:05
  Glen Erickson: What were to you personally, what were the hardest aspects of the music business to figure out, like to learn?
• 56:15
  cris derksen: I think like, the actual, like not over touring and not.
• 56:20
  cris derksen: Overhanging out with your bandmates is so important.
• 56:24
  cris derksen: And I think like, and it's like about how do you, how do we have these like beautiful relationships with those that we play music with without it getting too personal and too intense and too volatile, um, I think, you know, like, Especially when you're starting and you're going, you're just going so hard.
• 56:41
  cris derksen: You're just like saying yes to like absolutely everything that comes your way.
• 56:45
  cris derksen: And like, that can be dangerous.
• 56:47
  cris derksen: You get like, I hung out with Tanya too much, man.
• 56:51
  cris derksen: She's like my sister, like, no, like I, like
• 56:54
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 56:55
  cris derksen: you know, I think for me, like, it was like those lessons were the harder ones to figure out is like the, How to tour properly, how to like, maybe I can only do three weeks on the road without losing my mind.
• 57:08
  cris derksen: So maybe I can't do six weeks on the road.
• 57:10
  cris derksen: Like let's go home.
• 57:13
  cris derksen: Um, and so like, and trying to keep that practice, you know, going, I mean, after the pandy, my things definitely shifted for me.
• 57:21
  cris derksen: So I'm doing so much more composition, which is great.
• 57:24
  cris derksen: so I'm not having to like, Fight anyone to stay home for, or go home after three weeks.
• 57:30
  cris derksen: But I think that's really important.
• 57:31
  cris derksen: I think that we forget that we do have to go home.
• 57:36
  Glen Erickson: Well, I, that's a great point.
• 57:37
  Glen Erickson: I mean, I mean, that's a great example of self awareness as well that I think most people learn the hard way over a much longer span of time in this business of feeling like I can't say no to any opportunities, right?
• 57:52
  Glen Erickson: Or you don't know or believe the next one might be around the corner.
• 57:56
  Glen Erickson: Um, and so people will burn themselves out.
• 57:58
  Glen Erickson: People burn themselves out on the industry side and getting jaded.
• 58:03
  Glen Erickson: And I don't know how you personally feel.
• 58:06
  Glen Erickson: You don't.
• 58:07
  Glen Erickson: And you've never come across as jaded, despite how much, uh, you've had to learn and be a part of the business, like even reading a little bit about you, Cris, and, and of you've stepped into for leadership things where you've sat on boards, or you've been the advisory person to Philharmonic, right, in Calgary, or the, the things you've created with the BAMF, uh, Arts Centre, um, Like those leadership things mean that you're now having to mingle with people who look like me, probably most of the time.
• 58:38
  Glen Erickson: Right?
• 58:38
  Glen Erickson: And people of privilege who don't understand it all where you've come from, where the boardroom, although I don't feel comfortable in boardrooms, but feel more comfortable them to maybe what you do.
• 58:50
  Glen Erickson: You know, because if the golden rule, know, if the first chapter of the book, if I ever wrote it in the music businesses, don't be a dick,
• 58:57
  cris derksen: Yeah,
• 58:58
  Glen Erickson: which you've sort of already hinted that, that you've, you've figured out and you've,
• 59:03
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 59:03
  Glen Erickson: rule and it's part of your success.
• 59:05
  Glen Erickson: Um, I guess I'm curious because you've done a lot of things and stepped into a lot of roles like that with everything you've learned.
• 59:14
  Glen Erickson: What's that part of the experience been like you, were you treated like, you know, you get 15 years past high school, 20 years past high school and you start doing these things.
• 59:26
  Glen Erickson: I guess I have to ask, were you made to feel like the other,
• 59:31
  cris derksen: Um,
• 59:32
  Glen Erickson: in those situations ever or was that not?
• 59:35
  cris derksen: Not really, not really.
• 59:38
  cris derksen: One thing about the tokenism thing that my perception of it is that it has only allowed me to have a wider audience.
• 59:47
  cris derksen: so like, People be like, Oh, but you don't fit in the box.
• 59:50
  cris derksen: And I'm like, no, but I fit in every box.
• 59:52
  cris derksen: Like, so I, it allows me to like perform in so many more areas and even newer, uh, invited to perform in.
• 1:00:01
  cris derksen: I think me being in, in all of these different boxes allows me to.
• 1:00:05
  cris derksen: my career to be so varied and so wide.
• 1:00:08
  cris derksen: And so it's always been like a positive for me.
• 1:00:11
  cris derksen: I think like, yeah, for sure.
• 1:00:13
  cris derksen: I get awkward in, in boardrooms and like at schmoozy things.
• 1:00:18
  cris derksen: And like, I also, to be honest, I don't really feel like I'm like necessarily like, A part of the industry, quote unquote, um, I know that I work in the industry, but I'm like, I'm doing my own, I'm on my own path, man.
• 1:00:31
  cris derksen: I got my own stuff.
• 1:00:32
  cris derksen: I'm like, you know,
• 1:00:34
  Glen Erickson: Almost every artist I know feels that way, interestingly, I
• 1:00:38
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:00:39
  Glen Erickson: they, they always feel like they're, I mean, and to some people, maybe it's because they express more desire to get a seat at the table than others,
• 1:00:50
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:00:50
  cris derksen: And I feel like, you know what, if, if I'm the one getting the seat at the table, cause I'm indigenous right now, then great.
• 1:00:59
  cris derksen: Then hallelujah.
• 1:01:00
  cris derksen: You know, like, let's, Open up those doors.
• 1:01:04
  cris derksen: Let's keep those doors open.
• 1:01:05
  cris derksen: Let's like for the, for the classical world.
• 1:01:08
  cris derksen: I'm like, all right, like, how do you, how do we make orchestras look and sound more like Canada?
• 1:01:14
  cris derksen: How do we make this open?
• 1:01:15
  cris derksen: How do we make this a warm and accepting place?
• 1:01:18
  cris derksen: Cause it's kind of not,
• 1:01:21
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 1:01:22
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Glen Erickson: that's really interesting.
• 1:01:24
  Glen Erickson: I think, yeah, just being able to express that confidently has to be, I don't know if you look at it this way, but part of the secret of your success, I think so many opportunities along the way to take.
• 1:01:39
  Glen Erickson: The glass half empty of those things I, and I guess I partly bring that up or maybe it's a question underneath this because, um, I, I mean, I've talked to people.
• 1:01:52
  Glen Erickson: I'm in a position now where I've done hiring.
• 1:01:55
  Glen Erickson: you know, this.
• 1:01:57
  Glen Erickson: version that is a very generic version of diversity and collusion in corporate, in workplace, in the music industry, uh, in, in how grants are handed out or, you know, so it's part of that.
• 1:02:10
  Glen Erickson: And there's a generic version, which sometimes feels off, but I feel unqualified to say that because I'm a person of privilege, but it feels like that versus what you hope would be a more authentic version.
• 1:02:23
  Glen Erickson: version of that and, you know, full transparency.
• 1:02:28
  Glen Erickson: Like I, I need to hear what your side of that looks like to understand.
• 1:02:34
  Glen Erickson: Cause I wouldn't understand otherwise.
• 1:02:36
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:02:37
  cris derksen: Like for me, I'm like, I think it's amazing that Canada Council has its own Indigenous fun that I go to, you know, I think that's so great.
• 1:02:47
  cris derksen: and I hope they never take it away.
• 1:02:48
  cris derksen: And like, for me, it's like, we all have an important story to tell.
• 1:02:52
  cris derksen: We all have important stories to tell.
• 1:02:54
  cris derksen: and I feel like just very, I feel privileged to To be able to tell the stories, like, I don't, I don't know how to get half the gigs I get.
• 1:03:05
  cris derksen: And like, some of them are like mind blowingly difficult and some of them are just gorgeous.
• 1:03:13
  cris derksen: And like, I, I, yeah, it's like, kind of like
• 1:03:17
  Glen Erickson: with talent, right?
• 1:03:18
  Glen Erickson: Like, it starts and ends with like, you don't get that foot in the door just because you check a box,
• 1:03:27
  cris derksen: you have to be good.
• 1:03:28
  Glen Erickson: to believe, they have to believe you're not going to shit the bed.
• 1:03:31
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:03:31
  cris derksen: You have to be good and you have to like, yeah, you have to give a good track record.
• 1:03:36
  cris derksen: You have to get your things in on time.
• 1:03:37
  cris derksen: Um, you know, you have to.
• 1:03:39
  Glen Erickson: along the way.
• 1:03:40
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:03:41
  cris derksen: Don't be a dick, um, do your job, uh, yeah.
• 1:03:45
  cris derksen: you know, make people feel that they are also loved and welcome.
• 1:03:50
  cris derksen: Like, I think,
• 1:03:52
  Glen Erickson: gigs or any of these along the way where you were like, Oh, I think I just shit the bed there and I'm never going to get a call again.
• 1:04:02
  Glen Erickson: Did you have any of those happen along
• 1:04:05
  cris derksen: I mean, for sure.
• 1:04:07
  cris derksen: I recently, like I brought up Nat Geo.
• 1:04:10
  cris derksen: Um, and, uh, so I just scored a 90 minute documentary for Nat National Geographic and, uh, Holy cow.
• 1:04:18
  cris derksen: It was so hard.
• 1:04:19
  cris derksen: It was the hardest thing I've ever done.
• 1:04:21
  cris derksen: Like, because, um, Nat Geo has this beautiful library of music, symphonic music that they are, that the director is allowed to use whenever they want.
• 1:04:31
  cris derksen: Um, I don't know why, but he was like, no, I want Cris Derksen.
• 1:04:35
  cris derksen: And, uh, the music that I was like, the temp music that I was listening to, to try and compose against, I was like, Oh my God, this is brilliant.
• 1:04:44
  cris derksen: What do you want me to do?
• 1:04:46
  cris derksen: Like, I don't, I don't know.
• 1:04:47
  cris derksen: I don't know what to do here.
• 1:04:49
  cris derksen: he was very kind.
• 1:04:50
  cris derksen: He was very kind.
• 1:04:51
  cris derksen: Um, but yeah, for that one, I like, And it was also summer and so hot up here.
• 1:04:56
  cris derksen: I'm on the third floor, in Toronto.
• 1:04:58
  cris derksen: And, uh, so to record, you know, I have to turn all my fans off and it was like plus 40 and like, it was, yeah, I was like, I definitely, that gig, I was like, I am never going to get called by Nat Geo and that might be okay.
• 1:05:17
  cris derksen: I might be also done.
• 1:05:18
  cris derksen: Um, but we got it done.
• 1:05:20
  Glen Erickson: Geo, National Geographic we're talking about.
• 1:05:23
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:05:24
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:05:24
  Glen Erickson: Just in case anybody listening doesn't know what Nat Geo is.
• 1:05:27
  cris derksen: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:35
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:05:38
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  cris derksen: Yeah,
• 1:05:46
  Glen Erickson: and culture.
• 1:05:47
  Glen Erickson: Um, you, you bump around in those discovery years after high school, land at UBC in Vancouver, which gives you a lot of opportunity.
• 1:05:55
  Glen Erickson: You get connections to Vancouver, Folk Festival and then Tanya, and you start down this trajectory of recording albums, making your own creative music.
• 1:06:05
  Glen Erickson: And you'll, you end up in Toronto, which, you know, in the Canadian music.
• 1:06:10
  Glen Erickson: landscape, right?
• 1:06:12
  Glen Erickson: There's could if you keep backing out far enough, you'll start to look at it and see it's Toronto.
• 1:06:20
  Glen Erickson: And then it's the rest of the country.
• 1:06:22
  Glen Erickson: And it's Toronto telling everybody you need to move to Toronto and everyone else trying to decide part of their career, whether they need to do that or not.
• 1:06:31
  Glen Erickson: That's what Canadian music looks like, you know, like in the States, you have it.
• 1:06:35
  Glen Erickson: Nashville or you have L.
• 1:06:36
  Glen Erickson: A,
• 1:06:37
  cris derksen: LA, yeah.
• 1:06:39
  Glen Erickson: the world.
• 1:06:40
  Glen Erickson: But, you know, Canadian population and everything being down on the trans Canada.
• 1:06:44
  Glen Erickson: What it is, um, that's sort of what it often looks like at the 500 ft view.
• 1:06:49
  Glen Erickson: So was that a part of your choice to Toronto?
• 1:06:52
  Glen Erickson: Was it an industry choice?
• 1:06:53
  Glen Erickson: And what?
• 1:06:54
  Glen Erickson: When did that happen?
• 1:06:56
  cris derksen: Um, it was not an industry choice.
• 1:06:58
  cris derksen: It was a bad love choice.
• 1:07:01
  cris derksen: Um, I, I moved here for a girl and then she broke up with me.
• 1:07:05
  cris derksen: I think like two months after I moved.
• 1:07:07
  cris derksen: Um, but.
• 1:07:10
  cris derksen: There's also a, there was a bit of an industry to it.
• 1:07:13
  cris derksen: So Toronto has a beautiful Indigenous art scene.
• 1:07:16
  cris derksen: and I found like most of my friends in Vancouver, uh, you know, most of them are like harm reduction workers and, and, and doing the good work.
• 1:07:24
  cris derksen: You know, doing the hard, hard and dirty work.
• 1:07:26
  cris derksen: Um, of, of Indigenous art.
• 1:07:27
  cris derksen: keeping people safe.
• 1:07:29
  cris derksen: but not a lot of my friends were musicians or artists.
• 1:07:32
  cris derksen: and here in Toronto, you know, the majority of my friends are artists and are musicians and are not musicians, but like are in indigenous arts.
• 1:07:41
  cris derksen: and I, I think that support is really important.
• 1:07:44
  cris derksen: yeah, so, I originally moved here for love and then It worked out.
• 1:07:49
  cris derksen: Um,
• 1:07:51
  Glen Erickson: Has Toronto contributed since then?
• 1:07:53
  Glen Erickson: Do you feel
• 1:07:55
  cris derksen: yeah,
• 1:07:56
  Glen Erickson: able to like two things, I guess one is just, is that we're closer vicinity to a lot of these opportunities for either these unicorn requests, you know, and those sorts of things being centric to Toronto, as well as access to other musicians and things like that, that you cross with, is that been a part of shaping?
• 1:08:16
  Glen Erickson: Probably since
• 1:08:18
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:08:18
  cris derksen: Like Toronto has given me like so many opportunities, so many great opportunities that are like pretty wild.
• 1:08:25
  cris derksen: Like, you know, like being the band leader for the cavalcade of lights or for new year's being the band leader for like the new year's thing at Nathan Phillips square for like, you know, 80, 000, whatever people, those are big Huge opportunities.
• 1:08:37
  cris derksen: and like being the musicians here are fantastic.
• 1:08:42
  cris derksen: So like when I, you know, when I dropped orchestral powwow, we did it at the WestJet stage at the Harborfront center.
• 1:08:49
  cris derksen: it's outside, outside free stage, beautiful.
• 1:08:52
  cris derksen: And I had like, I think I had like 30 players on stage with me.
• 1:08:55
  cris derksen: Like, it was just like, it has given me so much and it's given me so much responsibility that I've had to like, stand up to, you know?
• 1:09:03
  cris derksen: so I, it was definitely the right move.
• 1:09:07
  cris derksen: and like, yeah, it's true.
• 1:09:08
  cris derksen: Like being close to Ottawa and Montreal is in New York is like actually really good.
• 1:09:13
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:14
  cris derksen: And, and BC, I felt like.
• 1:09:16
  cris derksen: And near the end of my time there that I was, I hit that glass ceiling and it was just like, you know, there's only enough room for like three weird cellists in Vancouver, you know, like there just like, wasn't enough.
• 1:09:29
  Glen Erickson: more than one.
• 1:09:31
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  cris derksen: Um, so it just, it didn't really feel like it was, I felt stagnant there.
• 1:09:37
  cris derksen: So I did move for love, but I also moved because I needed to get out of Vancouver.
• 1:09:41
  cris derksen: It was like
• 1:09:41
  Glen Erickson: What year was that?
• 1:09:43
  cris derksen: 10 years ago now.
• 1:09:44
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:09:45
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 1:09:46
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:46
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:47
  Glen Erickson: did you meet your now wife in Toronto?
• 1:09:50
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:50
  cris derksen: Totally.
• 1:09:51
  Glen Erickson: Was that through music scene connections?
• 1:09:54
  Glen Erickson: Cause you brought her out on that.
• 1:09:55
  Glen Erickson: Love is a battlefield.
• 1:09:57
  Glen Erickson: She got to stay, which was
• 1:09:58
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:09:59
  Glen Erickson: by the way.
• 1:10:00
  Glen Erickson: And I can't imagine how great and wonderful that for you to probably blend those things.
• 1:10:06
  Glen Erickson: But yeah.
• 1:10:06
  Glen Erickson: So did you meet through.
• 1:10:08
  Glen Erickson: Music or was it just, uh,
• 1:10:10
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:11
  cris derksen: She came.
• 1:10:12
  Glen Erickson: Was it?
• 1:10:13
  Glen Erickson: I don't know.
• 1:10:13
  cris derksen: No, no, no.
• 1:10:14
  cris derksen: I've never rapped.
• 1:10:15
  cris derksen: Um, it was, I'm a rock star.
• 1:10:18
  cris derksen: What do you mean?
• 1:10:19
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:19
  cris derksen: It was at a show that I played.
• 1:10:21
  cris derksen: Um, Is when I first met her and I introduced myself.
• 1:10:25
  Glen Erickson: She attended your show.
• 1:10:26
  Glen Erickson: Okay, this is a perfect rock star story.
• 1:10:29
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:29
  cris derksen: And I, I introduced myself and I was like, Hey, I'm Cris.
• 1:10:32
  cris derksen: And she's like, I know.
• 1:10:33
  cris derksen: And she turned around and walked away.
• 1:10:35
  cris derksen: I was like, who's that?
• 1:10:37
  cris derksen: And then I chased her.
• 1:10:39
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:39
  cris derksen: And then I chased her for like months.
• 1:10:41
  Glen Erickson: And so how long have you been together now?
• 1:10:43
  cris derksen: uh, it'll be like.
• 1:10:44
  cris derksen: Eight years, we're going on nine years.
• 1:10:47
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:48
  cris derksen: We're we're the 21st is our seven year wedding anniversary.
• 1:10:52
  Glen Erickson: Oh, that's great.
• 1:10:54
  Glen Erickson: That's great.
• 1:10:55
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:10:55
  cris derksen: It's the copper year.
• 1:10:58
  Glen Erickson: it's the copper year.
• 1:10:59
  Glen Erickson: There you go.
• 1:11:00
  Glen Erickson: So In this like trajectory of your career, and I just first off, I want to say, I really appreciate to lot of the little insights are what I hope to pull out of our conversation, which is, uh, you didn't take a normal path, right?
• 1:11:15
  Glen Erickson: Like you, you had normal aspirations that I think a lot of people had, but you had I think what a lot of people on the outside would consider like a whole bunch of roadblocks and setbacks to that normal or those set of aspirations, which you've clearly overcome with a lot of enthusiasm, which is amazing.
• 1:11:36
  Glen Erickson: And so when I look back at it.
• 1:11:39
  cris derksen: Okay,
• 1:11:40
  Glen Erickson: over that timeline, like getting to where you are right now.
• 1:11:43
  Glen Erickson: what do you feel has been the thing that's really been able to give you a career
• 1:11:48
  cris derksen: I think like, because I am so there's only one Derksen, you know, like there's, there's only one of me, like, I think my perception of the world around me is, um, and I think the way that I creatively do that with the cello and all of the different things that I add to it, you know, I think.
• 1:12:08
  cris derksen: I am unique, and I think people like that want more of that, I'm guessing, kind of.
• 1:12:14
  cris derksen: But like, yeah, I think it's like my perception of the world is what they want.
• 1:12:19
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:12:20
  Glen Erickson: Do you think, um, do you feel like as an artist, do you feel Uh, how do I want to phrase this?
• 1:12:27
  Glen Erickson: I don't like the current word, but I'll say it because everyone uses it and knows what I mean.
• 1:12:32
  Glen Erickson: Do you feel seen for all the parts of yourself that you want to be seen for?
• 1:12:39
  Glen Erickson: Like, a lot of artists feel like I mean, there's different versions of this where they don't, right?
• 1:12:44
  Glen Erickson: It's either like, I made that one song 15 years ago and that's all people want to hear, or that's all they think I do, or maybe they got involved in some other way.
• 1:12:53
  Glen Erickson: Thing or some advocacy and they only become known for one thing or or they were in a band and they can't seem to break out of a thing.
• 1:13:01
  Glen Erickson: I'm curious what because of all these different things you've touched on like, your Juno nominated, like you, like your compositions, your soundtracking, your personal, your own versions of like creative original.
• 1:13:16
  Glen Erickson: You're bringing your culture to the front and collaborating with so many people, like all these different things.
• 1:13:22
  Glen Erickson: Do you feel like that has scratched whatever that itches inside of like Cris?
• 1:13:30
  Glen Erickson: or do you, do you feel like it's just the way it out?
• 1:13:34
  cris derksen: I mean, half the time I'm like, I just have a weird job.
• 1:13:37
  cris derksen: But I am so grateful to have this weird job.
• 1:13:41
  cris derksen: do I feel seen?
• 1:13:41
  cris derksen: Yeah, I'm, I'm way too busy all the time.
• 1:13:45
  cris derksen: For sure.
• 1:13:46
  cris derksen: I feel, uh, privileged.
• 1:13:48
  cris derksen: And I also like going back to like, don't be a dick thing.
• 1:13:51
  cris derksen: the other day I posted, cause, Calgary, I'm doing a performance with Calgary Phil and they, Put my show as like, buy this gift and it was like a photo of me and I was like, look, literal gift and like got all these great compliments, but like the best compliment in there was like, yeah, I was talking to somebody the other day and saying that I knew you and they responded.
• 1:14:12
  cris derksen: Yeah, Cris knows everybody.
• 1:14:14
  cris derksen: And I think that's cool.
• 1:14:15
  cris derksen: Like, I think I'm like, I like, I work in so many different worlds that I do meet so many, so many people across our country.
• 1:14:24
  cris derksen: And I'm like, I'm very based out of here, you know, like I do tour internationally, but it's I'm, my work is here and I, that's important to me, you know?
• 1:14:35
  cris derksen: Um, yeah.
• 1:14:36
  Glen Erickson: great.
• 1:14:37
  Glen Erickson: I feel like is, Is a version of advocacy ingrained in you think everything you do?
• 1:14:46
  Glen Erickson: I think when we're young, there's a version of it that's just really a little unbridled passion, right?
• 1:14:51
  Glen Erickson: Like the way we think that we are, have something to say, which is very different than when we get a little bit older and we decide that.
• 1:15:01
  Glen Erickson: Or we just see that somebody's maybe gonna, because of our experience and time, give us opportunities to sit at desks and around tables where we get to have a voice.
• 1:15:11
  Glen Erickson: Uh, I'm wondering what that plays for you, because you have so many things you could be an advocate
• 1:15:19
  cris derksen: Yeah, I definitely like, Because I'm doing so much in the classical world right now and definitely I run, the indigenous classical gathering and that is a, a beautiful thing that like, What I was finding is I knew so many indigenous musicians across Canada, but, and I knew that there was like indigenous composers, but I just didn't know them.
• 1:15:39
  cris derksen: I didn't have that relationship with them.
• 1:15:41
  cris derksen: And so I realized like classical music gets so styled and you're, you're, you know, you're just with your orchestra or you're just with your people.
• 1:15:50
  cris derksen: More often than not, you're the only indigenous person.
• 1:15:53
  cris derksen: So, it was, I was like, we need to build that community and we need to build that relationship because once we build that, build those networks, we can open the doors for so many more people.
• 1:16:01
  cris derksen: It's about, yeah.
• 1:16:02
  cris derksen: Like always, you know, building up people around you.
• 1:16:06
  cris derksen: So everyone is successful, you know?
• 1:16:08
  Glen Erickson: you made a reference at the very start of our conversation about and again, this, this goes back to this obviously good self awareness and awareness of your spaces that you're in and people, which I think is a fantastic point.
• 1:16:23
  Glen Erickson: personal trait of you said, you know, I don't, I don't, you know, people don't all sign up to hear the real intense stories that you could tell.
• 1:16:32
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 1:16:32
  Glen Erickson: Um, and I get that awareness like personally, since we know each other, right.
• 1:16:37
  Glen Erickson: when I stopped working in a church and, and went away from that with my own personal.
• 1:16:44
  Glen Erickson: unraveling of everything I needed to unravel there.
• 1:16:47
  Glen Erickson: Um, I learned very quickly how to start to pick and choose my words because I was acting in the sense of protecting others for a long time of like, I don't need to blow their world up because I'm changing.
• 1:17:02
  Glen Erickson: And that was specifically related to religion and and religious upbringing and all the things that go with that and, um, but learned that sense.
• 1:17:12
  Glen Erickson: And I, and I'm wondering in your own evolution of having such a strong sense of, um.
• 1:17:18
  Glen Erickson: You know, what room I in, what, what people am I, you know, entertaining with these stories right now are, you know, the act of picking and choosing is that feel burdensome or does it all is just still very natural to you at this stage of life to, to, to tell the stories at the time and, and just sort of improvise.
• 1:17:40
  cris derksen: Yeah, it feels like, um, it's just part of my job, just kind of like what I do.
• 1:17:45
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:17:46
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:17:47
  Glen Erickson: Well, that's a pretty, like, Cris, that's a really positive, like, I mean, don't get me wrong.
• 1:17:52
  Glen Erickson: Like I'm going to walk away from this conversation and feel very impacted by the level of positivity.
• 1:17:59
  Glen Erickson: you have for the whole thing and where you are and what you've been able to do because I just I can't help but assume that there's a underside to the coin of lot of closed doors and a lot of opposition, a lot of challenges that you've probably had to also work through and face and industry is two things.
• 1:18:21
  Glen Erickson: You've said one of them already.
• 1:18:23
  Glen Erickson: It's relationship.
• 1:18:24
  Glen Erickson: It's not business.
• 1:18:25
  Glen Erickson: Most of the time.
• 1:18:27
  Glen Erickson: it's also, pretty cleanly split between jaded people and optimistic.
• 1:18:33
  Glen Erickson: I don't know if you agree with that, but you are clearly on the optimistic side.
• 1:18:38
  Glen Erickson: Is,
• 1:18:39
  cris derksen: I think, I just,
• 1:18:40
  Glen Erickson: that been a choice?
• 1:18:42
  Glen Erickson: Is that
• 1:18:42
  cris derksen: I,
• 1:18:43
  Glen Erickson: you made?
• 1:18:44
  cris derksen: I think it's also like, yeah, like, I just try and keep my nose clean, you know, like just try and keep, keep to my path and like, not, um, Like put blinders a little bit on to like the noise going around in me because it's like, everyone has their own version of success and success also changes and it's, it's a movable thing.
• 1:19:07
  cris derksen: And like, I can't be worried about, you know, the competition around me.
• 1:19:12
  cris derksen: I just, I have to just try and do my best job
• 1:19:16
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:19:17
  cris derksen: and like keep it to me, you know, it's about,
• 1:19:21
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, I agree.
• 1:19:22
  Glen Erickson: Uh, well, I mean, that's refreshing also to hear and, uh, definitely goes along with the incredible positivity that you put out just when you talk about.
• 1:19:31
  Glen Erickson: your experiences and your opportunities, that have gone along the way.
• 1:19:35
  Glen Erickson: And, you know, I think underlying, like, this is why, this is what, go ahead.
• 1:19:41
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:19:42
  cris derksen: I mean, it's also like, it's, it's a heartbreaking industry and like, for sure you gotta have like thick skin, um, to a degree.
• 1:19:49
  cris derksen: But, uh, I feel like if I got jaded, that would affect the music, you know?
• 1:19:53
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:19:55
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:19:57
  Glen Erickson: I mean, you listen to people who will sit and go over an artist's discography and you can start to pick apart their personal life based on the albums at a long timeline.
• 1:20:07
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 1:20:07
  Glen Erickson: When we know, when we know what was going on in retrospect quite often, and you can see how that affect it.
• 1:20:13
  Glen Erickson: So I think that's also refreshing to hear.
• 1:20:18
  Glen Erickson: What are the things right now, like you said, you're mostly, you know, working in classical music.
• 1:20:24
  Glen Erickson: So what are the things that you're working on?
• 1:20:25
  Glen Erickson: I know you mentioned one of them that you're going to be working on through 2025 2026.
• 1:20:30
  Glen Erickson: Are there other sort of opportunities on the horizon that feel like a highlight
• 1:20:36
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:20:37
  cris derksen: Um, I mean, this whole, this whole year has been a highlight, like playing Carnegie Hall was a highlight.
• 1:20:42
  cris derksen: I did my first ballet.
• 1:20:44
  cris derksen: Nat Geo was a highlight.
• 1:20:45
  cris derksen: Um, I'm the composer.
• 1:20:47
  cris derksen: This is so weird.
• 1:20:48
  cris derksen: Uh, I am the composer for the Canadian Pavilion for the World Expo.
• 1:20:53
  cris derksen: So, uh, the World Expo happens every two years.
• 1:20:56
  cris derksen: I was in fact the Canadian composer.
• 1:20:58
  cris derksen: for the last one as well, in Dubai.
• 1:21:01
  cris derksen: so, but in this one, it's, this one's more of an installation piece.
• 1:21:04
  cris derksen: Uh, so when you walk through the building, you'll hear cello, you'll hear, and like, also a lot of other noises, but like, you'll hear, um, it'll be me that you'll hear as you walk through the building.
• 1:21:16
  cris derksen: So that's pretty cool.
• 1:21:18
  cris derksen: Um, and then the TSO thing is working with CAMH, which is a mental health and addictions, uh, hospital here in Toronto.
• 1:21:28
  cris derksen: Um, so working with, clients that, want to join for two months, uh, eight, Eight sessions, like every Monday, and creating a piece together and we have no idea what that looks like yet because we don't know who's going to be there.
• 1:21:43
  cris derksen: But, um, I am so stoked for that one.
• 1:21:48
  cris derksen: yeah.
• 1:21:48
  cris derksen: And then also my summer's kind of shaping up.
• 1:21:50
  cris derksen: I have this album that I've been sitting on for like way too long.
• 1:21:55
  cris derksen: Um,
• 1:21:55
  Glen Erickson: that's
• 1:21:56
  cris derksen: That's gotta come out.
• 1:21:57
  cris derksen: Um, yeah, I've, every day it's, it's basically done.
• 1:22:02
  cris derksen: I just need to do now.
• 1:22:03
  cris derksen: I mean the mastering and the artwork and stuff, but, um,
• 1:22:07
  Glen Erickson: space where it's like taking up a whole bunch of room in your head and you're like, let's, we need to get this thing finished and done.
• 1:22:14
  cris derksen: No, I think that's the problem.
• 1:22:15
  cris derksen: I think I've forgotten about it.
• 1:22:16
  cris derksen: And then every time, every time I'm like, Oh yeah.
• 1:22:20
  cris derksen: And then I got to get that thing done.
• 1:22:22
  cris derksen: But there's like, I'm currently in like the end of year kind of vibe where I'm trying to write like five pieces really fast.
• 1:22:29
  cris derksen: cause somehow things got shifted and moved and.
• 1:22:33
  cris derksen: Now we got three weeks left and I'm like, okay, go
• 1:22:39
  Glen Erickson: Has anyone used the word prolific with you before?
• 1:22:44
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:22:45
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:22:46
  cris derksen: Amen.
• 1:22:46
  Glen Erickson: an amazing amount of volume that you're, you're pushing out.
• 1:22:49
  Glen Erickson: Um, well, I want to say, Cris, first of all, I super appreciate you taking the time to just talk about your story, like walk, walk through your history I, I'm interested in that with every artist.
• 1:23:05
  Glen Erickson: I'm particularly interested with you because we have some history
• 1:23:09
  cris derksen: Mm-hmm
• 1:23:11
  Glen Erickson: and I guess when I said earlier, I think one of the most
• 1:23:14
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:23:28
  Glen Erickson: uh, all these pieces together and you call it your job is, amazing.
• 1:23:32
  Glen Erickson: And in the middle of it all, not only are you not a dick, you're to people like me who got it wrong for so long, who didn't see you for who you were.
• 1:23:43
  Glen Erickson: And, uh, I mean, personally.
• 1:23:46
  Glen Erickson: Uh, that's why I love you so much because you showed me grace when I was not the person I should be.
• 1:23:53
  Glen Erickson: So, I am so excited and proud.
• 1:23:56
  Glen Erickson: Isn't the right word?
• 1:23:57
  Glen Erickson: Cause I don't have any stakes in your career, but proud because I feel some version of stakes for
• 1:24:05
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:24:05
  Glen Erickson: you matter me, you're part of my life and history.
• 1:24:08
  Glen Erickson: So I just wanted to communicate to you that like,
• 1:24:12
  cris derksen: Uh,
• 1:24:18
  Glen Erickson: the better version that you taught me in my life, and I think an impact I think you're probably having around the world.
• 1:24:25
  Glen Erickson: And I hope, I don't know whether that resonates, whether you feel that
• 1:24:29
  cris derksen: know
• 1:24:29
  Glen Erickson: your efforts in your career.
• 1:24:31
  cris derksen: I think like the, the takeaway for me, like when I left the church and like, Y'all aren't acting with love, I guess.
• 1:24:39
  cris derksen: And I'm like, that's the opposite.
• 1:24:41
  cris derksen: Like, and our church was very snotty too, like very, very snotty.
• 1:24:46
  cris derksen: And I'm like, you, you don't have, like, you are not acting like, like Jesus would, you know, you, there's no love here.
• 1:24:54
  cris derksen: Um, and yeah.
• 1:24:57
  Glen Erickson: catchphrase when I left was, they're more concerned with being right than there are with being good.
• 1:25:03
  cris derksen: Mm, mm-hmm
• 1:25:04
  Glen Erickson: that can't change, it's not what it says it is.
• 1:25:07
  Glen Erickson: And,
• 1:25:08
  cris derksen: Exactly.
• 1:25:08
  cris derksen: Mm-hmm
• 1:25:09
  Glen Erickson: and I've found, and I just said that and 24 years later, I still hang my hat on that
• 1:25:16
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:25:17
  Glen Erickson: said
• 1:25:17
  cris derksen: Totally.
• 1:25:18
  Glen Erickson: time, which is exactly what you're saying.
• 1:25:20
  Glen Erickson: Uh, your resiliency, though, despite things that a lot of other people might treat as roadblocks or, or things that are preventing them is, is incredible.
• 1:25:32
  Glen Erickson: And I'm so happy that you'd be willing to sort of tell the whole story
• 1:25:37
  cris derksen: Mm-hmm
• 1:25:37
  Glen Erickson: with me here.
• 1:25:38
  Glen Erickson: So, um, just want to say, thank you so much for being a guest and, and telling your story and talking about it.
• 1:25:45
  Glen Erickson: And I look forward to seeing and hearing what comes next.
• 1:25:49
  cris derksen: Totally.
• 1:25:50
  Glen Erickson: and if you bring another touring show Edmonton, I sure hope that you'll let us know in advance like you did before.
• 1:25:58
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 1:25:59
  cris derksen: come to Calgary.
• 1:26:01
  cris derksen: I'm going to do the Carnegie piece in Calgary, the Carnegie piece in Calgary in March.
• 1:26:06
  cris derksen: I'll send you the deets.
• 1:26:08
  Glen Erickson: ask you like is playing Carnegie Hall like up at the top of for you like was that like
• 1:26:16
  cris derksen: I mean, it wasn't even on my list, man.
• 1:26:18
  cris derksen: It was too, it was too high for me to be on my list.
• 1:26:22
  cris derksen: Um, yeah, it was really, really cool.
• 1:26:24
  cris derksen: Like the, The conductor, Yannick, he's like, he taught Bradley Cooper how to conduct.
• 1:26:28
  cris derksen: He's like famous.
• 1:26:29
  cris derksen: Like
• 1:26:30
  Glen Erickson: wow.
• 1:26:31
  cris derksen: one of the top five in the world.
• 1:26:32
  cris derksen: So for him to like, for him to even know who I was to commission me, that blew my mind.
• 1:26:38
  cris derksen: and then the Carnegie bit on top of that, it was just like
• 1:26:42
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:26:42
  cris derksen: super mind blowing.
• 1:26:43
  cris derksen: I did have a freak out like two weeks before I had a full melty and being like, I didn't, I didn't ask for this.
• 1:26:50
  cris derksen: I don't deserve this.
• 1:26:51
  cris derksen: Like,
• 1:26:52
  Glen Erickson: Oh
• 1:26:52
  cris derksen: this is too much.
• 1:26:53
  cris derksen: And, uh, but then it was just glorious.
• 1:26:55
  cris derksen: And my mom
• 1:26:57
  Glen Erickson: That's incredible.
• 1:26:59
  cris derksen: got a cut.
• 1:27:00
  cris derksen: It was very cute.
• 1:27:01
  Glen Erickson: Oh really.
• 1:27:01
  Glen Erickson: Oh, that's great.
• 1:27:03
  Glen Erickson: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 1:27:04
  Glen Erickson: Well, what a great wrap up.
• 1:27:05
  Glen Erickson: We started talking about your mom.
• 1:27:06
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 1:27:08
  cris derksen: Yeah.
• 1:27:09
  Glen Erickson: okay, well, I really appreciate you, Cris and thanks for giving me your time and opening yourself up and uh I look forward to what's coming out and I wish you all the best.
• 1:27:18
  cris derksen: Awesome.
• 1:27:19
  cris derksen: Say hi to Arlene for me.
• 1:27:21
  Glen Erickson: Bye bye.
• 1:27:28
  Glen Erickson: I don't know why every time it's like the worst connection of all of our guests is you and me being in the same house or something.
• 1:27:36
  Glen Erickson: So, that's okay.
• 1:27:37
  Glen Erickson: We'll figure it out.
• 1:27:38
  Glen Erickson: Episode five.
• 1:27:40
  Glen Erickson: Cris Derksen.
• 1:27:41
  Glen Erickson: Um,
• 1:27:42
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:27:43
  Glen Erickson: this is a really old friend who, Yeah.
• 1:27:47
  Glen Erickson: A name I've heard lots in passing.
• 1:27:49
  Glen Erickson: yeah, let's talk about, Cris and that episode for me, it was interesting to have Cris, obviously a really old connection, which I mean, most of the old connections I would have on the podcast would be ones, you know, that were sort of either connected while doing music or in growing music or in some.
• 1:28:09
  Glen Erickson: Version of that if I'm bringing on an old friend, but this wasn't like that Like this was a connection that I never ever knew would end up in the place now uh, you know the two careers and the two paths and Being able to have a chance to talk to her about all the things that she's done in her life and career uh, and I know like you said you've heard the name before but what um, you know, what sort of things Stood out like
• 1:28:37
  alexi: There was a lot, like, there were so many things that weren't, like, resounding, but were just like, it was just new information.
• 1:28:46
  alexi: Like when she went into, like, the whole symphony, um, I don't know, it's just like a section of, like, the music scene.
• 1:28:58
  alexi: That I've just never even given thought to, because, like, I don't know, kind of, why would I?
• 1:29:04
  Glen Erickson: Well, me too, yeah,
• 1:29:08
  alexi: even, like, pinpoint.
• 1:29:09
  alexi: It was, like, everything that was said was, like, Oh, like just like new like it was just new and cool information, especially from someone like that's in her shoes and then like additionally when she was saying how like Uh, and it's a point i'll get to in a second is like the main thing But when she said no to the sector soleil when she was still quite young, I just thought that was like, I'm just like, what are like, what are interesting?
• 1:29:33
  alexi: Like, Oh yeah.
• 1:29:34
  alexi: I said no to the Cirque du Soleil.
• 1:29:35
  alexi: Cause I wanted to like work on my own things and like do the symphony and did it, and I was just like, what a life, like to live, like that's just so unique to her, I think.
• 1:29:45
  Glen Erickson: yeah, I mean, it really is like who I guess first reaction is everybody would be like, who would do that, particularly for somebody who's still up and coming,
• 1:29:55
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:29:56
  Glen Erickson: I guess it sort of speaks to what I felt was the underlying story for her, which is she's always just followed exactly what she thinks she wants to do and needs to do.
• 1:30:09
  Glen Erickson: And there's no version of.
• 1:30:11
  Glen Erickson: Being persuaded either by something glamorous or whatever it is, you know, the things that she wanted.
• 1:30:18
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:30:18
  Glen Erickson: I think that was pretty cool Yeah,
• 1:30:25
  alexi: pickup is like, usually when I listen to the episodes, there's a couple of things, um, kind of like unrelated.
• 1:30:32
  alexi: All, all the points I put down were the same.
• 1:30:34
  alexi: And it was that she was like talking about like, I mean, like to quote her, she had like no five year plan.
• 1:30:39
  alexi: Like she didn't believe in creating a five year plan for herself.
• 1:30:41
  alexi: and like, kind of, as you just said, it was more about like putting herself out there.
• 1:30:46
  alexi: And it was like exactly as she phrased it was like, Yeah, I just like put myself out there, put myself out there like in the world and also like those kind of affirmations like into my own mind, and like, that's how she kind of planned on getting her name out there.
• 1:30:58
  alexi: And I just think it's so interesting because like, you're doing the podcast to see all these different perspectives of people who are in and around, like the music industry and scene and cetera, et cetera.
• 1:31:09
  alexi: and I feel like a lot of stories.
• 1:31:11
  alexi: Although so unique, have like, of foundational factors that are similar.
• 1:31:16
  alexi: And one is kind of like, that you plan and like, you know, everyone that you've talked to like, has had like a plan and followed this plan and worked really hard.
• 1:31:24
  alexi: And she's done the working really hard, but the like, foundational, just like solid planning of like, this is the point I want to get to, and this is how I get there, like, that's not for her.
• 1:31:34
  alexi: And it isn't for everybody, but you just don't hear that often from people like that.
• 1:31:40
  alexi: It's like when you're trying to be successful in something that you don't just like create a like plan and a goal and like try to reach it.
• 1:31:47
  alexi: That she just wants kind of take it as
• 1:31:49
  Glen Erickson: yeah
• 1:31:49
  alexi: I just thought that was super interesting.
• 1:31:52
  Glen Erickson: so I like that observation cause that's exactly how I felt.
• 1:31:55
  Glen Erickson: And to be completely honest, that's quite really, I guess that's the underlying Parsh, part Parsh.
• 1:32:02
  Glen Erickson: That's the underlying part of, The story that I hoped would come out when I want, when I knew I wanted to interview her on the podcast because, well, not that I knew all of that, but just, it was a different path.
• 1:32:15
  Glen Erickson: Like, it would be easy for me to get people and their story, as you sort of said, might sound familiar or predictable about how they make those plans and follow them through and, and hers is a different thing.
• 1:32:29
  Glen Erickson: So she's.
• 1:32:30
  Glen Erickson: symphony cello
• 1:32:33
  alexi: Yeah,
• 1:32:33
  Glen Erickson: She's really as much a rock star in every way as anybody I can think of that I would get on the show.
• 1:32:42
  Glen Erickson: So, I mean, that's a pretty bad ass choice to turn down Cirque du Soleil.
• 1:32:45
  Glen Erickson: So,
• 1:32:46
  alexi: especially when you want to like so many people would see that as like, oh, this is my chance to like break through like that's the term I always use is like when you're up and coming in her position, it's like that's the breakthrough.
• 1:32:56
  alexi: Like that's like
• 1:32:57
  Glen Erickson: yeah.
• 1:32:57
  alexi: how to get yourself out there.
• 1:32:59
  alexi: And she was just like, this is a breakthrough, but not mine pass.
• 1:33:03
  alexi: I
• 1:33:04
  Glen Erickson: That's the thing.
• 1:33:05
  alexi: so cool.
• 1:33:06
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, it's punk rock for sure.
• 1:33:08
  Glen Erickson: yeah, so that is, I'm glad you brought that up because I felt it's the same for me while I was talking to her and even doing the edits, doing, doing the edits right now, um, that I'm just sort of struck by, primarily her optimism all the way through, both that things were going to work out for her and that the way they worked out weren't, Some version of like you said, breakthrough that fit some model, but she's so optimistic and she's so pleasantly well pleased with a lot of the things she's got to do and the opportunities she have and she just treats it like her job and it's her job.
• 1:33:47
  Glen Erickson: And so, um, the, uh, one of the things.
• 1:33:51
  Glen Erickson: About the podcast.
• 1:33:53
  Glen Erickson: The only thing I was going to say was what was a little unfortunate is I had two, uh, audio glitches in pieces that, having to edit them out, like take little sections out like small, but,
• 1:34:06
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:34:07
  Glen Erickson: uh, one of them, you would never know, like the conversation ends up being seamless without the way I had to remove it,
• 1:34:14
  alexi: Silence.
• 1:34:22
  Glen Erickson: it was a little bit more, it felt like it was a little more conversation for her and I, so it's probably not the worst part to have lost, but it also, it also had a couple of glitches and I wasn't sure how that is going to seem together.
• 1:34:34
  Glen Erickson: Cause then we reference that conversation later about her mom.
• 1:34:38
  Glen Erickson: And I always hate it if a podcast sat and then I'm like, I don't remember them talking about that.
• 1:34:44
  Glen Erickson: So.
• 1:34:45
  Glen Erickson: We'll see.
• 1:34:46
  Glen Erickson: We'll see.
• 1:34:46
  Glen Erickson: Right.
• 1:34:47
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:34:53
  Glen Erickson: Uh, but I'm really happy that she was on.
• 1:34:55
  Glen Erickson: I was really happy.
• 1:34:56
  Glen Erickson: We could talk about somebody really from a different life and a different path
• 1:35:01
  alexi: Mm
• 1:35:05
  Glen Erickson: talk about it with so much optimism, like I said, and, um, just a lot of gratitude and pride in what she's been able to do in her life.
• 1:35:15
  Glen Erickson: was very refreshing and encouraging.
• 1:35:17
  Glen Erickson: So pretty special for me.
• 1:35:18
  Glen Erickson: She's so great.
• 1:35:20
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:35:20
  Glen Erickson: So I also quickly, uh, wanted to just talk to you about some music things, um, as we always like to do.
• 1:35:29
  Glen Erickson: But in particular I was just going to ask you about you get to go to a show in Vancouver, I guess next week.
• 1:35:35
  Glen Erickson: It's right at the end of the month, right?
• 1:35:36
  Glen Erickson: So I guess that's the end.
• 1:35:37
  alexi: a week.
• 1:35:38
  Glen Erickson: Very soon end of February.
• 1:35:40
  alexi: Mm hmm.
• 1:35:41
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:35:49
  Glen Erickson: because the story is and I was talking to you about this earlier And I don't know why when I bought you those tickets on ticket master I hadn't even thought about the connection to when I took you and your brother to day in vegas, which was I think 2019 2019.
• 1:36:06
  Glen Erickson: Yeah, it was pre pandemic.
• 1:36:07
  Glen Erickson: It was
• 1:36:07
  alexi: like grade nine ish?
• 1:36:09
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:36:12
  Glen Erickson: in like April of that and the Vegas, there was two days and we went to one day and we weren't going the day that Tyler, the creator was supposed to be there, but all you wanted to do was stand in the ridiculous line to buy his merch.
• 1:36:26
  Glen Erickson: Anyhow, so we stood for over an hour.
• 1:36:30
  alexi: yeah.
• 1:36:30
  Glen Erickson: the
• 1:36:30
  alexi: Like,
• 1:36:31
  Glen Erickson: line.
• 1:36:31
  alexi: shows too, like, got there early.
• 1:36:34
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 1:36:34
  alexi: didn't know who, like, other artists or merch would be there, or if there was gonna be guest artists or not.
• 1:36:40
  alexi: I was like, seen him or not, like, I need to get in that line
• 1:36:45
  Glen Erickson: but you
• 1:36:46
  alexi: shirts.
• 1:36:46
  Glen Erickson: got the shirt.
• 1:36:47
  Glen Erickson: Did you get one or did you get two things, but
• 1:36:50
  alexi: got two, I have two now.
• 1:36:51
  Glen Erickson: you didn't get the posters there.
• 1:36:52
  Glen Erickson: You ordered those online, right?
• 1:36:54
  Glen Erickson: The ones that you have, yeah.
• 1:36:57
  alexi: No, I ordered that online.
• 1:36:58
  alexi: Yeah,
• 1:36:59
  Glen Erickson: but you got the shirts.
• 1:37:01
  alexi: got the
• 1:37:01
  Glen Erickson: of them, which is a great story of a mustard stain.
• 1:37:05
  Glen Erickson: And a shirtless boy.
• 1:37:06
  Glen Erickson: So we won't tell that story here, but it's, it's, uh, it's a great story.
• 1:37:11
  Glen Erickson: Yeah.
• 1:37:11
  Glen Erickson: So that, that all came back to me when we were talking about you going to Tyler, the creator next week.
• 1:37:18
  Glen Erickson: Uh, and I thought it'd be a funny, quick story to tell because, uh, that day in Vegas is maybe, The first time I was going to a show where I had no business being at, it was like two days,
• 1:37:31
  alexi: said.
• 1:37:32
  Glen Erickson: it was two days of hip hop and wasn't even as much old.
• 1:37:37
  Glen Erickson: I mean, there was a bit of that, but,
• 1:37:39
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:37:40
  Glen Erickson: I, I don't, I just don't usually feel irrelevant in any music scene that I'm around until I'm at the point where I knew two names, I knew Doja Cat and, and Post Malone and who a huge fan of, so that was.
• 1:37:58
  Glen Erickson: And the Doja Cat show was absolutely, I said, then it looked like a Grammy performance and that was 19.
• 1:38:06
  Glen Erickson: And I did discover some people there that was really cool, but the most fun for me was actually going to a show where it wasn't for me anymore.
• 1:38:16
  Glen Erickson: And, um, and you and your brother, having an incredible time on this massive fairgrounds and you were
• 1:38:24
  alexi: Mm hmm.
• 1:38:26
  Glen Erickson: from one end to the other because they were eating the main artists from one stage to the other.
• 1:38:31
  Glen Erickson: And so finally your cousin and I just plopped in the middle and
• 1:38:35
  alexi: You guys were
• 1:38:35
  Glen Erickson: got drinks and watched you go back and forth running to each
• 1:38:40
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:38:41
  Glen Erickson: which was pretty cool.
• 1:38:41
  Glen Erickson: But the, the other fun tie in for you and I to that is when we started playing Spottle.
• 1:38:50
  Glen Erickson: A little while ago, right?
• 1:38:51
  Glen Erickson: When we started playing Spottle last fall, and your brother And you couldn't realize why I could get a bunch of the answers that I shouldn't I think it's that's where it all started I think from that moment on I started being more familiar and paying attention to
• 1:39:09
  alexi: hmm.
• 1:39:10
  Glen Erickson: What was going on in hip hop and stuff?
• 1:39:12
  Glen Erickson: Uh,
• 1:39:12
  alexi: That's so funny.
• 1:39:14
  Glen Erickson: not actively but a little bit any all these little tie ins for me, but what are you?
• 1:39:19
  Glen Erickson: Uh, are you looking for you said you maybe aren't going to get in the merch line What are you most excited for the show
• 1:39:27
  alexi: I think if it was in Edmonton, I'd definitely be tempted for a merch line.
• 1:39:31
  alexi: Mm hmm.
• 1:39:32
  alexi: I mean, when am I not, but I think because, um, my friend and I one backpack each for two days and plan on hitting up the Granville market and whatnot.
• 1:39:48
  alexi: yeah, I don't know if I want to spend like 120 plus on a
• 1:39:53
  Glen Erickson: price?
• 1:39:54
  alexi: for
• 1:39:54
  Glen Erickson: Yeah,
• 1:39:55
  alexi: up half of my backpack and be a struggle.
• 1:39:59
  alexi: Um,
• 1:40:00
  Glen Erickson: that's a good point.
• 1:40:01
  Glen Erickson: And it's already an extra investment to be going overnight on a plane to Vancouver to see the show.
• 1:40:10
  Glen Erickson: So I totally can respect that.
• 1:40:13
  Glen Erickson: And I didn't know you were going to hit up Granville market, but that's mostly, you'll probably just eat a bunch of fresh food and enjoy it.
• 1:40:19
  alexi: yeah, this is true,
• 1:40:21
  Glen Erickson: hopefully the weather will be great.
• 1:40:22
  alexi: things to buy.
• 1:40:23
  alexi: We know this.
• 1:40:25
  Glen Erickson: We do know this.
• 1:40:27
  Glen Erickson: Well, my light just went out.
• 1:40:29
  Glen Erickson: The battery finally died.
• 1:40:31
  Glen Erickson: This is a funny episode.
• 1:40:33
  alexi: that would happen to one of us.
• 1:40:35
  Glen Erickson: That's fine.
• 1:40:35
  Glen Erickson: It doesn't really matter.
• 1:40:36
  Glen Erickson: Um, I haven't used any video for clips yet.
• 1:40:39
  Glen Erickson: Anyhow, um, all these things I'm going to have to decide what to keep or not.
• 1:40:44
  Glen Erickson: Anyhow, um, that's all.
• 1:40:46
  Glen Erickson: That's all I had to chat about today.
• 1:40:48
  Glen Erickson: Is that all we have to chat about?
• 1:40:50
  alexi: I feel like sometimes we just spend so much time with each other that we chat
• 1:40:55
  Glen Erickson: Ramble
• 1:40:55
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:40:56
  alexi: Well, no, we just, we chat in the car and we chat in the house and then we come to here and we're like.
• 1:41:01
  Glen Erickson: what's left.
• 1:41:02
  alexi: our list, yeah.
• 1:41:04
  Glen Erickson: So, okay.
• 1:41:05
  Glen Erickson: I'll have to start saving things.
• 1:41:06
  Glen Erickson: I'm going to start saving something in my head and that'll be hard, but it'll be fine.
• 1:41:11
  Glen Erickson: It
• 1:41:12
  alexi: Write
• 1:41:12
  Glen Erickson: doesn't matter.
• 1:41:13
  Glen Erickson: Okay.
• 1:41:14
  Glen Erickson: Well, I really enjoyed Cris and as always, I really enjoyed talking to you.
• 1:41:19
  Glen Erickson: So thank you.
• 1:41:20
  alexi: Yeah.
• 1:41:22
  Glen Erickson: bye.
• 1:41:23
  alexi: Bye.