{"id":168827,"date":"2026-08-15T03:20:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T03:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/168827\/"},"modified":"2026-08-15T03:20:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T03:20:16","slug":"tia-wood-returns-to-alberta-for-edmonton-folk-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/168827\/","title":{"rendered":"Tia Wood returns to Alberta for Edmonton Folk Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Coming from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, <a href=\"https:\/\/tiawood.ca\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Tia Wood<\/a> first started performing at powwows. \u201cMy summers look a little bit different now,\u201d Wood said. \u201cI used to go powwow, I used to go to ceremonies every weekend.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her music has come a long way since then. Last week, she performed at the <a href=\"https:\/\/edmontonfolkfest.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Edmonton Folk Music Festival<\/a> with her family and friends in the crowd.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wood is now based in Los Angeles, but described herself as nomadic. \u201cI\u2019m always on the road so I barely get to go there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She performed an unreleased song, \u201cAlberta,\u201d that touches on the feelings of grief that come along with leaving home and family.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat song\u2019s really personal to me,\u201d she explained. \u201cI\u2019m probably leaning towards releasing it because a lot of people that have heard that song really resonated with it, and a lot of my Indigenous youth, relatives have really connected with it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Shining a light on her community through her music is important to her. That extends to using her music to speak on important issues like mental health and substance use. It also means uplifting her Two-Spirit and drag friends, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pheromonekillz?igsh=MWZ6a3Uwdjk3bHkxYw%3D%3D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Pheromone Killz<\/a>, who joined her on stage at Folk Fest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe got in contact and I was like, you know what? I need more energy,\u201d Wood explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cShe was doing the worm on stage,\u201d she laughed. \u201cI was like, if I look at it I\u2019m going to get so distracted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Honouring her family and community <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wood didn\u2019t grow up seeing Indigenous Peoples represented in popular culture, but she\u2019s gotten to be a part of changing that. She was the first Indigenous woman to be signed to Sony Records and has shared the stage with Shawn Mendes.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI am so thankful to come from such a long line of amazing and talented people that didn\u2019t maybe get the opportunities that I\u2019ve gotten,\u201d she explained. \u201cIt\u2019s been really cool to step into these spaces and just be proud of where I come from and represent not only me, but my whole community \u2026 and my family and just be unapologetic about it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her sister, Fawn Wood, is one of the main reasons why she pursued music.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cShe\u2019s a trailblazer within the Indigenous community when it comes to women singers and musicians,\u201d Wood explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She opened her performance with a traditional song composed by her sister. \u201cI just like to honour her because I got my start in traditional music, but she was really one of my biggest inspirations to go out and try something new.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Tia Wood first started performing at powwows. \u201cMy summers look a little&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[2454,52,29183,27674,54058,3015,29184,54059,54060,19228,54061,14819,19230,19231,9481,18470],"class_list":["post-168827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-arts-and-culture","tag-edmonton","tag-edmonton-folk-fest","tag-edmonton-folk-music-festival","tag-fawn-wood","tag-indigenous","tag-leah-hennig","tag-pheromone-killz","tag-saddle-lake-cree-nation","tag-the-gateway","tag-tia-wood","tag-two-spirit","tag-u-of-a","tag-ualberta","tag-university-of-alberta","tag-yeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}