CMC Presents : tUkU X bUdi

Tuku Matthews comes from a family of professional artists prominently rooted in jazz culture in Canada and the United States. Tuku began singing in her mother’s bands, and soon after was touring extensively as a background vocalist with The Jeff Healey Band and Quebecois pop star Roch Voisine. Tuku cofounded bLaXaM, an original band fusing jazz and soul and integrating complex harmony and rhythm, and was lead vocalist for Juno Award-winning contemporary jazz ensemble The Merlin Factor, with whom she recorded three albums. More recently, she has explored composition for theatre through the WaTah Theatre directed by d’bi young anitafrika. During her residency with WaTah, d’bi invited her to compose for and perform in her work ESU: Crossing the Middle Passage which offered her a Dora nomination for Outstanding Sound Design/Composition in Independent Theatre. Tuku is a recipient of the OAC Chalmers Fellowship. In 2020, Tuku will start recording her first solo effort entitled luna’s re-.
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Nicholas Dourado leads the Big Budi Band; a modular improvising ensemble as arranger, saxophonist and piano player. They were trained by Jerry Granelli through the Creative Music Workshop in Halifax, NS and have since gone on to play with Aquakultre, Fiver, Lido Pimienta, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Century Egg and many others. They are a teacher and organizer and hold a master degree in ocean geophysics and acoustics.