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: https://show.ps/l/ff8e9003/
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
Sarah Jo Kirsch, 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
Klatwa was co-produced by Russell Wallace and John Korsrud with the generous support of the First Peoples’ Cultural Council and the British Columbia Arts Council.
Saltchuck City Orchestra’s Klatwa Album Release Concert takes place on the traditional and unceded territory of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh).
We gratefully acknowledge the support of Vancouver Community College, Canadian Heritage, JTC Heersink Foundation, and the City of Vancouver.
About Russell Wallace:
Russell Wallace is an award winning composer, producer and traditional singer from the St’at’imc/Lil’wat Nation (Salish) in Canada. His music has been part of a number of film and television soundtracks and theatre/dance productions and as a musician has been part a number of award winning groups and recordings. Currently, Wallace is the Director of the Indigenous Vocal Ensemble at Vancouver Community College and works with a number of local choirs in Vancouver.
About the Ray and Flora Wallace Bursary:
The Ray and Flora Wallace Bursary at Vancouver Community College (VCC), established by musician and composer Russell Wallace, commemorates the legacy of his late parents through the provision of financial assistance to Indigenous students pursuing musical studies at VCC.
The Bursary was established by Wallace to commemorate the legacy of his late parents through the provision of financial assistance to Indigenous students pursuing musical studies at VCC.
Ray and Flora Wallace transformed their modest East Vancouver house into a sanctuary of support for education, music, and community. Throughout the 1980s, they quietly covered textbook costs, tuition fees, and bus tickets for Urban Indigenous students struggling to make ends meet. Their kitchen table, scratched from years of use, became a gathering place where hungry students found homemade bannock and strong tea, sympathetic ears and generous hearts.
About Vancouver Independent Music Centre Society (VIM)
VIM is a non-profit, charitable organization established in 2011 with a mandate to develop a well-designed, central, accessible, sustainable and culturally diverse music centre based on feedback from hundreds of musicians, music presenters, concertgoers and managers among others. In 2018, the City of Vancouver passed zoning at the Plaza of Nations to include a 20,000 square foot music centre based on the VIM’s vision and plans. https://vimhouse.ca
For more information or interviews, please contact Cindy Dai at communications@vimhouse.ca.
