Russell Wallace and the Vancouver Independent Music Centre Society (VIM) present:
Saltchuck City Orchestra - Klatwa Album Release - Saturday, February 7th, 2026
Vancouver Community College - Broadway Auditorium
1155 E Broadway, Vancouver
Doors: 6:30 PM
Show: 7:30 PM - the orchestra will perform one set, reception to follow
Tickets at the door Pay What You Wish, suggested $10 contribution (Cash or Credit Card). Subject to availability.
All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to the Ray and Flora Wallace Bursary at Vancouver Community College (read more below).
Tickets are sliding scale general admission and include (1) copy of the album per ticket. Please arrive early to secure your seats. Please reach out to cindy@vimhouse.ca if you require further assistance with tickets.
Lil'wat composer and performer, Russell Wallace, celebrates the release of his album Klatwa (Redshift), featuring compositions rooted in his Salish heritage in a concert featuring his ensemble, the Saltchuck City Orchestra:
Emily M Cheung, soprano
Renee Fajardo, mezzo-soprano
Sam Dabrusin, tenor
Russell Wallace, bass
Lan Tung, erhu
Cameron Wilson, violin
Marina Hasselberg, cello
John Korsrud, trumpet
Bill Runge, alto saxophone
Geoff Claridge, tenor saxophone
Andrew Skepasts, guitar
Wynston Minckler, bass
Noah Franche-Nolan, piano, keyboard
Kai Basanta, drums
Raphael Geronimo, percussion
About Klatwa - Embark:
“I trace my finger over the album cover—curved lines and angles forming the word 'Klatwa – to embark,' the same marks my great-grandfather's pen once made when writing to villages across the mountains. The songs within pulse with movement: salmon fighting upstream, crows banking against dusky skies, ancestors descending from stars, and communities coming together. This Chinook shorthand also flowed between Stʼatʼimc hands in the 1800s, a code of connection that barely survived.
I still hear my mother's voice in the melody of "Gathering"—how she would hum it first, barely audible, in the residential school's shadowed corners. Girls would gather around bodies huddled close, as she taught them to shape their mouths around Stʼatʼimc syllables the teachers had forbidden. They memorized each word, each inflection, passing it between them like a secret flame that mustn't die. Years later, when I record this song, I feel her breath in mine—the same defiant air that kept our language burning when they tried to extinguish it. Vancouver rose from this coastal soil nourished by the intertwined roots of many peoples. Saltchuck City Orchestra honours this convergence—each note a declaration of defiance, each harmony an offering to those who found strength in unity, and each rhythm pulsing forward, inviting us all to dance.”
- Russell Wallace