Indigenous Creativity in Music
Composition Project
2025 Recipient: Geneviève Gros-Louis
www.genevievegroslouis.com | @theonewomansymphony
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With a career that spans classical performance, film scoring, and Indigenous cultural advocacy, Geneviève spent over a decade as a section first violinist with the Des Moines Symphony and Des Moines Metro Opera. Her versatility as a performer and composer allows her to move seamlessly between concert halls, fashion runways, and film studios—always with the goal of fostering deeper cultural understanding through music and storytelling.
​Through every performance, composition, and collaboration, Gros-Louis honors her roots while pushing artistic boundaries. Her work is a call to listen—deeply and intentionally—to the voices, stories, and histories that too often go unheard. Geneviève Gros-Louis is a Los Angeles–based composer, violinist, and producer from the Huron-Wendat Nation in Wendake, Québec, whose powerful, story-driven music explores mental health, sexual violence, and the ongoing challenges faced by Indigenous communities. She draws from both personal experience and her community’s history to create work that is emotionally resonant, culturally grounded, and unapologetically bold.
A graduate of McGill University with a degree in violin performance, Geneviève has captivated audiences across the world through interdisciplinary collaborations and performances. She has presented her original compositions at prestigious events including the Cannes Film Festival, Paris Fashion Week, Strawberry Moon Festival, Santa Fe Indian Market, and Pechanga Pow Wow. Her work has also been featured in the Washington State History Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Anchorage Museum, and Des Moines Art Center, as well as in a recent exhibition installation for the Erie Canal’s Bicentennial commemoration at Buffalo’s canal-side waterfront.
Gros-Louis brings a distinctive voice to film and television, weaving Indigenous identity and emotional depth into every score. Her recent work includes composing for Life Below Zero: First Alaskans (Season 3) and Life Below Zero (Season 12) for National Geographic. She also created original music for the Clooney Foundation for Justice, scored Courage—an award-winning short film by world champion hoop dancer and Cirque du Soleil performer Eric Michael Hernandez—and composed music for Reclaim My Skin, a documentary series by award-winning director Marie Clements. In addition to her film and television work, she has performed violin on Dancing with the Stars and collaborated with artists such as Nelly Furtado, Tony Duncan, and Pura Fé of Ulali—seamlessly blending Indigenous musical traditions with contemporary cinematic and pop styles.
2025 Project Jury
Sherryl Sewepagaham Sherryl Sewepagaham, a dynamic Cree-Dene artist from the Little Red River Cree Nation, Northern Alberta, blends her heritage with artistry, composition, and education. She is a current PhD student at UBC and holds a 2024 Vanier Scholar title, and was awarded a SSHRC Doctoral Award and a UBC Indigenous Graduate Fellowship award all in the same academic year. She has devoted over two decades to K-6 music education infusing Indigenous musical traditions and creating Indigenous-focused teaching resources for MusiCounts, the Music Alive Program with the National Arts Centre, and the Alberta Orff Chapter. She is a passionate advocate of Cree language songs contributing to the resilient work of Indigenous language preservation and retention in communities, education, and academic scholarship.
J. Alex. Young J. Alex. Young is a Cree-Settler Composer from Northern Ontario. He holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) from Carleton University, a master’s in composition from the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. in Composition based on his research of Cree culture. He has operated as an Indigenous student advisor for the University of Calgary Equity Diversity Inclusion and Decolonization Committee and is currently a dedicated member of the Canadian Music Centre’s Accountability for Change and Indigenous Advisory Councils. In 2019, he was awarded the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship for his research on Indigenous culture, encompassing aspects of Cree storytelling, ceremony and song as inspiration for new creative works. His most recent work, titled šâkohtâw was premiered on February 27, 2022, by the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra as an Indigenous composer commissioned to create a new work for Tom Jackson’s digital series The Bear and the Wild Rose. He has upcoming works to be premiered with the Calgary Wind Symphony and Tim Brady’s Instruments of Happiness ensemble. Starting in September 2022, he joined the School of Music at Brandon University as Assistant Professor of Composition and Indigenous Music Perspectives. J. Alex Young feels that unity of self, community, land and spirit must be maintained to reflect a musical concord between his Indigenous Cree and Western settler heritage. His compositions are combinatory of Western sonic orchestrations and Cree-based narrative explorations of his connection to home, family, story and spirituality.
Ariel Carrabré Ariel Carrabré is a Montreal-based cellist originally from Manitoba and a laureate of numerous competitions, including the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition. Actively involved in contemporary music, he places a particular emphasis on championing Métis composers, reflecting his own Red River Métis heritage. He earned his Bachelor's degree in performance at McGill University before pursuing two Master's degrees at the University of Ottawa: one in cello performance with Paul Marleyn, and another in music theory, supported by a prestigious SSHRC grant. Ariel completed his academic journey with a doctorate in performance at the University of Montreal, studying under Yegor Dyachkov. His doctoral research focused on injury prevention and recovery for string players, emphasizing the explication and management of muscular tension.