By Jim Barber
If music is medicine, as it most assuredly is, then those who practice this medicine are indeed healers. They may not mend broken bones, but they can soothe broken hearts. They can’t improve your circulation, but they can enhance the flow of positivity, empathy, passion and perseverance in your spirit. They can’t perform open heart surgery, but they are experts at open soul surgery.
That music has the power to heal is no longer a discredited and dismissed theory. It’s empirical, evidence-based truth.
For roots/traditional singer-songwriter Mimi O’Bonsawin, as someone with a deep and abiding respect for her Indigenous heritage and its customs, healing practices and the integral way dance and music permeate many Indigenous nations, creating music, performing music and absorbing music as an audience is a profoundly powerful medicine indeed.
“I don’t think it’s standard Indigenous teaching, but I have spoken to some elders who shared with me the importance of music. I think it’s universal. I don’t feel music belongs to anybody, but it also belongs to everybody. It’s not something you can literally touch and pick up – you can pick up the medium it’s recorded onto like a CD – but music made from a human in front of another human, you can’t grab it, but you can learn from it, you can absorb it, you can carry it in your heart, but it’s not a ‘thing.’ And I don’t really know other things that are that powerful in this world. I think that makes sense why people use it in worship, in healing, in ceremony, in meditation, in therapy. There’s so many ways it helps people,” she said.
“My grandfather was the singer in our family and I think I get my love for singing from him. He had Alzheimer’s and later in his life all he really had left was this joy for music and performing. He was a very reserved dude but later on he would just light up with music and his old songs, and Elvis. Music would bring him back to himself. So, I believe 100 per cent that music is medicine, music is healing. We often talk these days about artificial music, artificial intelligence taking music away from people like us who make it. I don’t think you could ever take away the power of a person making music in front of another person. To me, that’s everything.
“Even just thinking about it, I put that into not just music in life. I think of food as medicine. I think of community as medicine. There are so many things that are interconnected for me. The idea of music as medicine, the sharing of music – when people sing together, when people come together, when people dance together we’re all literally healing something inside of us, or on the land, or out in the universe. There’s such a powerful energy created from that experience that is undeniably healing.”
A child of both Abenaki and French-Canadian cultures, O’Bonsawin spent her childhood enmeshed in these communities in northern Ontario, drinking in a deep, reverent connection for the land and all its inhabitants – flora and fauna alive. It is the fundamental to the way she goes about her life and her artistry.
With her background and life experiences. she understands at a level that most of us cannot, that nature is not a grocery store of resources to be exploited, but a complex, interdependent system of life and energy of which humans are only a small part. And this complexity and bounty is something for which she says she will always be grateful. The land is her teacher, her provider and her inspiration.
“There’s a lot of gratitude in my music and in my life. In my personal life, creating a really strong connection with the land is something that I can’t ignore. It’s just always been in me; it’s been in my family. It’s been passed down for generations that these things are really important in our universe, in my universe. Being grateful for that journey, being grateful for that connection and that learning and relearning – there’s a lot to have gratitude for, and a lot of space for more growth. There’s always space for learning more and always strengthening that relationship with the land and the world around us.”
O’Bonsawin’s music is reflected in the very sounds she makes on her instruments (including her exceptionally emotive harp playing) and the language she composes to accompany that music. The metaphor of a garden is not simply a clever literary device or affectation. It’s a foundational touchstone for her songwriting.
Her songs are infused with stores and imagery of gardens, of planting, nurturing, of seeds, of pruning, the changing seasons, life, death, rebirth, adaptation, survival and the essential co-operative co-existence that is core to the way nature endures and thrives.
“[The Songwriting impulse] sometimes just comes from experiencing something, and it’s often out on the land. This medicine of songwriting, this healing of songwriting it just happens and then you see yourself reflected in that and you’re like, ‘okay, that’s the lesson I needed to learn.’ I think that only happened once I started actually not forcing things, and really telling my stories from an authentic experience. It’s real things that I am living that I’m talking about and I want my songs to reflect that,” O’Bonsawin said.
“I decided at one point that I am going to tell my stories, so then I never have to worry about if I’m right or wrong. If I’m talking about things that I’m living and that I’m seeing and that I’m experiencing and touching, then I’m sharing something that’s real and true. I think those things we’re talking about, nature, growing, planting, being grateful for the earth and everything it provides are just the things that are important to me and that’s the lens I see the world through. I’m just so lucky that it actually comes through in the songs.”
And it’s a catalogue of songs that has expanded by leaps and bounds even over just the past half decade. Elle Danse (EP) came out in 2020, followed by the instrumental album Fiddleheads & Ferns in 2022. Spring 2023 saw the issuance of the masterful 14-song album, Willow, followed six months later by O’Bonsawin’s first ever French-language album, Boreale. Mimi O’Bonsawin: Live in Concert came out digitally in 2024, and a new studio album is expected in 2026.
Her’s is a symbiotic, co-operative relationship with nature. It is close, intimate, almost conversational. And it is mirrored in her relationship with her life partner/husband and musical accompanist, the brilliant and innovative drummer/percussionist, Ryan Schurman. The two have been together for almost a decade, and playing as a duo for six of those years.
“I had been putting out records and touring before I met Ryan. I had some other amazing musicians in my band at the time and it wasn’t like I said goodbye and forgot them. They’re my brothers and I still keep in touch; they’re still my good friends. So, there was a bit of a transition from that to what Ryan and I do now. When the pandemic happened we’d been touring as a DIY duo kind of thing and at that time we decided to make it more into a show, so it was a very natural progression,” she said, adding that there is a unique dynamic because the couple truly are collaborators, but it is still O’Bonsawin’s name on the marquee and on the cover of the album.
“It’s always been a weird feeling for me because I don’t want to be the centre of attention or anything like that. And I also know that I wouldn’t be able to do what I do, the way I do it, without Ryan. Everyone who comes to our show or who knows us can see that Ryan has such a big part to play in my songs. But I still write a lot of songs all by myself in my little room in our cabin. Later I present them to Ryan and then we work on them together after I’ve written them, and he puts his little twists and turns on them. Through this whole thing, there’s levels where it always starts with me by myself and then Ryan comes in, he adds his stuff and then it goes out into the greater world.
“Onstage, he is like a security blanket for me, because in the past I did tour a little bit as a solo performer and I was a small, young female artist on the road by myself, I just don’t think that I would want to do that again. So, we built this little unit together where it was like everywhere we go we bring that home, we bring that what I call ‘gnome energy.’ It’s my safe space; it’s my comfort zone. And no matter what’s going on, whether it’s a festival or house concert, or whatever, I know that me and Ryan are tight. And I really, really appreciate that. For me I think that’s what’s helped me find my confidence, find my voice, find my strength in my playing and my writing, because I have that safety net there.”
For Schurman’s part, the last few years have seen him evolve as a musician as he and O’Bonsawin navigate their way through the music industry. With progressive rock chops, and a deft, but hard-hitting style, as a percussionist his approach has become more subtle and varied to match the moods of O’Bonsawin’s songs.
“Not every show is a big, open, outdoor festival. So, we actually had to recalibrate and Ryan had to work really hard. And he did work really hard, and he totally nailed it in terms of being more percussive, especially in performing arts centres and smaller venues and not leaning into the drums like in hard rock. He’s learned to adapt to the spaces we’re playing in and adopting a more storytelling approach, and using different things like shakers. I think for him; the comfort zone was big drums and it was awesome and we both went there. But then we realized there’s actually power in playing less busy or less loud in some moments, and then letting it go in other moments. That’s been a whole different lens to see the music through and I think it’s really, really helped us. We encourage one another to explore more and even though it was hard for him at first, because it’s such a big change, it quickly became a bit of a superpower to the point where he actually prefers to play less in certain places because that’s what serves the song.”
After tours, the couple retreat back to their lovely little cabin in the woods; their little Hobbit hole in northeastern Ontario, and revert to their deep sense of interdependence and connection to the land. Having initially moved down to Toronto to embark on her music career, now this shared homestead provides not only emotional sustenance and a place to unwind, to slow down and revel in the quiet and solitude, but also literal sustenance for O’Bonsawin as she maintains gardens, cans preserves and lives off the sweat of her brow and her knowledge of planting, growing and nurturing. There are those words again!
“I grew up in the bush in northern Ontario. For my whole childhood we always lived outside of town, so I spent a lot of time in the forest by myself and it was like that all my life, except for this blip between ages 18 and 26 where I moved to Toronto. I was trying to find myself, and that’s a really hard time in most people’s lives. I always wanted to have this life that was self-sufficient. I always dreamt of living my culture [she is a member of the Odanak First Nation] and speaking my language and feeding myself through music. But it was always this dream that seemed really far away,” she said of her time in Toronto which, as with any big life choice, had its good points and it’s not-so-good points.
“I think I surrounded myself with people who weren’t serving those dreams. I had people around me telling me what to wear, what to do, how to play, how to write. I had some really hard things to deal with. I was told stuff where I thought, ‘this is kind of weird.’ And looking back you know it was not right. But in the moment, I just wanted to do music so bad that I was willing to compromise myself a little bit. When you’re young, you tend to do that more. But now I am 32, so, no, that’s not happening again. But, as an artist, you’re really creative when the chaos is all around you, so I wrote some really good songs that mean a lot to me to this day during that time period. Anybody in my family, or anyone who knows me would say that I definitely blossomed once I met Ryan and he became part of my life. I think that was a big tipping point for me. As an artist, and as a person who’s actually feeding themselves through music, I think that was a big moment for me.
“I moved to Toronto right after high school to keep working on music. And I met a lot of really amazing people. Coming out of high school, not going to music college or anything like that, I just dove right into touring and playing shows and surrounding myself with amazing session musicians. That, for me, was my education. I think of that record I did [her self-titled debut, released in 2014 when she was 21] was very much about learning and absorbing as much as I could about the industry and the costs of being an artist. And I also made friends with so many amazing female artists, who are truly my sisters. I feel especially as women, it’s important for us to have that circle where we can talk to one another. It’s great to have that network and that outlet, especially in music. There’s so much to learn from them from the artist side but also on the industry side.”
With an adventurous spirit that has seen her and Ryan tour as far afield as France and Australia, as well as throughout Canada, has opened O’Bonsawin’s mind and spirit to other lives lived, other cultures, other music. It’s also brought her into contact with other creators, some of whom have been deeply inspiring. It has led her to seek out more musical collaboration in her career, with the first such intertwining of styles coming in the form of an innovative remix of her song ‘Elle Danse’ by the groundbreaking and brilliant Boogat, known for his seamless blending of traditional Latin American music styles with modern hip hop..
“I approached him because I was always a super fan of his music. I saw him play at a festival in Sherbrooke and then we finally met after and we would talk back and forth. When I saw him again at last year’s Summerfolk in Owen Sound [Ontario]. I asked him, ‘I don’t know if this is your thing, but do you want to maybe reimagine this song?’ And he was totally into it. So, I initiated it and I’m not always the first person to ask for things that I want, but I was feeling brave and he was game for it, and now we’re good buddies,” she said.
“When we play that song live, there’s quite a bit more drums in there and it becomes like a dancing moment in our show. From the studio version, which we recorded quite a few years ago to now where it’s become this engaging moment in the live show, it’s picked up a bit more energy. And what I love about music is that in this case it’s sort of folk meets electro with that upbeat energy, that danceable energy. I think I believed that was a pocket or groove that he [Boogat] would be able to work with. I wanted it to have the energy that the song has now in our shows, and then his style on top of it.
“We first sent him a live version of us playing the song to a metronome and then we kind of constructed the whole track around that performance. We provided the shape of the song, the skeleton of it and said to him, ‘do your thing,’ and he sent something back to us. It took a while, because I was on tour and was really busy, but then when I finally heard it I remember thinking, ‘oh my God, he nailed it.’ I loved it. And then I went back and redid the vocals and replaced a few little things. But for the most part, he did it all, and it was so exciting to get it back and see, ‘wow, this is how you re-imagine a song.’ “
The result speaks for itself as ‘Elle Danse’ now adds an element of classy modernity, international flair and honest-to-goodness infectiousness to what was already a lovely piece of music. The positive outcome has O’Bonsawin thinking that perhaps more collaborations, more re-imaginings and even partnering on music from scratch with other unique artists might be in the offing.
“We spent last winter, when we came back from Australia, recording the new album. I have all those songs fleshed out and I am excited to get them out into the world. And then we definitely have a couple of ideas of things that could be re-imagined or revisited in the future. And I am open to it. This is festival season right now, so we’re going to make friends. We’re going to meet some other music making pals and see if maybe a song resonates with someone and they want to reimagine it or even collab on something original,” O’Bonsawin said, adding that the new record is expected to be released at the end of 2026, with singles starting to trickle out starting this fall.
“And for this new record, for the first time, we invited people to kind of be on it as special features. We have some very special people, special guests on this record. But I’m definitely open to trying something new. Sometimes people come up to me and say, ‘do you know this artist? You should collaborate with them.’ I don’t have a specific plan in mind, but I am open to it.”
The list of accolades and awards O’Bonsawin has earned over the past decade or so is impressive and well deserved and, frankly, too lengthy to mention (check out her website!!) They are recognition from peers, from fans, from critics, from the industry, from cultural institutions and from communities. They are evidence of the truth of how music can influence hearts and minds, move spirits and souls, and make a different for the better in this world.
“For me, it’s about being accepted into a community of people that I really look up to. For example, the Trille Or Awards is for francophone artists living outside of Quebec [Mimi was named Solo Artist of the Year for 2025], the first time I got nominated for that award I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I’m part of this community now. I’m part of the scene. I’m part of this amazing group if artists making cool music.’ And the same thing with the Indigenous Music Awards. My first nomination for them was in 2017 and I felt the same. I am part of this community too and maybe I belong here now. It’s not something to just put on a shelf, for me it’s a welcome. It’s people saying, ‘you’re one of us,’” she said.
“It’s encouraging. It makes me want to continue to do the work. But for me the real feeling comes from winning over people, of building an audience. I was in Kingston recently playing at the Skeleton Park Arts Festival. We had played in Kingston a bunch of times back in the day. And I’m pretty sure one of the first times I played to two or three people. I made fifty bucks and drove back to Toronto. Now, we’re playing this great festival and then there was a street show after the festival in downtown Kingston and there was 150 or so who showed up for that, and this was after the festival was over. They were all singing, dancing and cheering.
“And for me, it was a bit of an emotional experience because I thought, all that time spent playing shows with two or three people, and then actually being invited back to play, and we have all these people coming out wanting to share this experience with us. To me, that means more than anything. So, awards are amazing, and I think it’s really important to recognize people for the work they do. But I’m a musician who loves to play, so having people come out to your show is the best. That’s the ongoing award for me.”
On the horizon, O’Bonsawin dreams of playing even further afield that she already has, excited to embrace the opportunity to meet new people and experience new cultures and ways of living and creating music.
“I would love to play music in, like Norway or something. I would also really love to go play music at some cool festivals in like, Senegal or any African country where people really like to dance and feel good. We’ve done a couple of small shows down in Mexico, so playing in South America, or Mexico again or Central America would be just awesome,” she said.
For more information, visit Mimi O’Bonsawin on her social media accounts, or https://www.mimi.ca.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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