“Always remembering your why is so important,” says Brianna Lizotte. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta, but grew up in Sylvan Lake. She comes from a long line of fiddle players, so the music she now plays represents her family traditions and history. Her dad and grandfather would have kitchen parties and make home movies of the music. The parties were held from the seventies until the early 2000s, full of singers, guitar players and fiddlers. She came around toward the end of the kitchen parties as musicians were passing away or unable to play due to health issues. Playing the fiddle and bringing back the history and tradition has been important to her.

A full time musician, Lizotte not only performs at festivals, she also educates. She and her husband Ethan Graves have a workshop series called Métis History Through Music and Dance which they teach in schools online or in person. To make learning interactive, they teach the kids jigging, playing the spoons and paddling. Outside of making music, jamming and recording she doesn’t have much time for other hobbies.

Lizotte performs her music, writes new songs and records songs for her own albums and she also records and jams with folk musicians. She plays backup fiddle and does backup vocals for other musicians, too. The music is different from what she grew up with, old time country and Métis inspired traditional music. Getting to showcase her music at festivals is an opportunity to share her culture with a new audience of people.

The Métis Nation of Alberta helped her get gigs when she first got started. Lizotte would lead in veterans and dignitaries as part of grand entry or play at Métis Nation events. She also got to play events for the towns of Red Deer and Sylvan Lake. She got her start when she was just 14 or 15 and kept going from there.

Motivating her towards this career path has been her family loving music so much and watching home videos of kitchen parties. Lizotte has also loved the sense of community and family in music. When she was ten years old the last fiddle player in the family passed away and she had a dream she was playing the fiddle. Music has always been the glue that connected her family across distances.

Other extracurriculars like karate, basketball and swimming never stuck but the fiddle did. At one point a teacher reprimanded her for missing so much school for music and told her she should find a real job and focus on school. It was a turning point where she decided she was going to make it and show her she would because she didn’t have a plan B, this was what she was going to do.

When it came to obstacles, Lizotte had friends who were negative about her wanting to do music fulltime. She also struggled to find out who she wanted to be as a musician given there are so many spaces, opportunities and roles available. Performing was her passion but getting a degree in performance was an obstacle.

Going to school online was another obstacle, when the zoom wouldn’t pick up her instrument or when it would crash or when her professors wouldn’t be able to hear what she was playing. Lizotte didn’t get to know her classmates, only being online. It also contributed to her social anxiety, or her anxiety about networking. There were so many ways the pandemic hindered her learning and connection.

To keep her mental health in check during times of uncertainty, Lizotte leaned on her biggest supporters, her mom, dad and sister who she called all the time when she moved away from home. Because she couldn’t afford therapy, she would go to the gym when she could to get big feelings out. Connecting with people her own age, with other musicians, was also an important outlet. Remembering to breathe was also crucial, allowing herself to feel all the feelings and pulling back to stop herself from spiralling too much.

When she needs inspiration, Lizotte looks to her family, her uncles and cousins who were great musicians who could get a crowd going with their stage presence, jokes and confidence. She also looks up to other fiddlers like John Arcand, Calvin Vollrath, Patti Kusturok, and her professor and friend Daniel Gervais. Someone else who inspires her is Noah van Nordstrand, a jazz musician.

As far as advice for aspiring musicians, Lizotte says, “just remembering your why if you want to be a musician…I find that explaining and remembering your why to yourself is totally eye opening... Remember what it is that you want to try to change in the music industry or change in yourself. Those are the things that I would say to remember, if you're wanting to be an aspiring musician, your why and how your why will impact you in your future.”

In closing,  Lizotte shares words of encouragement, “Just do what you want to do and be who you are unapologetically, really, whether it's performing or not. I think it's all just beautiful, and you're all making ancestors and people behind us proud, whether or not you know it.”

Always remembering her why, Brianna Lizotte has built a beautiful music career performing and educating. Inspired by her family, by kitchen parties and driven to share her heritage with audiences near and far, she picked up a fiddle and never put it down again. While not everyone was always supportive, she found the determination to succeed regardless and continues her family’s legacy on as many stages as she can.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.