(They/Them): Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation & irish) Olivia Shortt is a storyteller and performing artist working across Turtle Island and internationally. They are a vocalist, saxophonist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, video artist, curator, administrator, and producer.

(They/Them): Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation) Olivia Shortt is a storyteller and performing artist working across Turtle Island and internationally. They are a vocalist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, video artist, drag artist, curator, administrator, and producer.

Shortt was featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine and was described as a “glittering, rising star in the exploratory music firmament.” They have appeared on CBC Kids ‘Gary the Unicorn and their voice has been used off-screen for Stephen King’s ‘In the Tall Grass’ and Season 3 of ‘Chucky’; they made their Lincoln Center debut in 2018 with the International Contemporary Ensemble; they made their film debut, onscreen playing saxophone, in Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film Guest of Honour; and recorded an album with their duo Stereoscope, two kilometres underground in the SnoLAB (an underground laboratory specializing in Neutrinos and dark matter physics in Northern Ontario, Canada). Shortt performed and premiered Raven Chacon’s (Diné) ‘For Olivia Shortt’ at The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC) as part of Chacon’s series of solo works 'For Zitkála-Šá' during the 2022 Whitney Biennial and has performed the work at The Holland Festival (Amsterdam) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC).

(They/Them: Anishinaabe, Nipissing First Nation // ireland) Olivia Shortt is a storyteller and performing artist working across Turtle Island and internationally. They are a saxophonist, noisemaker, improviser, composer, sound designer, video artist, and curator.

Shortt was featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine and was described as a “glittering, rising star in the exploratory music firmament.” and named by the CBC as "one of six Indigenous composers you need to know" who "is a force of nature in the North American new-music scene". They made their Australian debut in 2017, performing new Canadian and Australian works for saxophone and Ondes Martinot, in Melbourne, with keyboardist Jacob Abela; they have appeared on CBC Kids ‘Gary the Unicorn and their voice has been used off-screen for Stephen King’s ‘In the Tall Grass’ and Season 3 of ‘Chucky’; they made their Lincoln Center debut in 2018 in New York City, performing as a percussionist in Michael Pisaro’s A Wave and Waves, with the International Contemporary Ensemble; they made their film debut, acting and playing saxophone, in acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan’s 2019 film Guest of Honour; and recorded an album with their duo Stereoscope, consisting of Robert Lemay’s composition Fragments Noirs two kilometres underground in the SnoLAB (an underground laboratory specializing in Neutrinos and dark matter physics in Northern Ontario, Canada). Shortt performed and premiered Raven Chacon’s (Diné) ‘For Olivia Shortt’ at The Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC) as part of Chacon’s series of solo works 'For Zitkála-Šá' during the 2022 Whitney Biennial as well as at the Holland Festival (Amsterdam), and at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC).

Their own performance-art-storytelling-work has been featured at send+receive (Winnipeg), Native Earth's Performing Arts' Weesageechak Festival (Toronto), Upintheair Theatre’s e-Volver Festival (online/Vancouver), Paprika Festival (Toronto) and the Vector Festival (Toronto). Shortt has opened for Indigenous artists Raven Chacon (The Music Gallery, 2019, Toronto) and Mali Obomsawin (East Coast 2022 USA-Canada Sweet Tooth Album Tour).

Recent commissions, performances of their work and collaborations include Long Beach Opera (Songbook 2020), the JACK Quartet (as part of the inaugural JACK Studio), workshops for a new opera ‘The Museum of the Lost and Found: gaakaazootaadiwag’, a video score for improvisers at the Danish New Music Academy ‘your secrets are safe with me’, and commissions with artists such as Carey Newman (The Witness Blanket), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Blueridge Chamber Festival (Vancouver) and Probably Theatre (Halifax/Toronto).

As a curator, they have presented artists such as Du Yun (USA/China), Joy Guidry (USA), Thin Edge New Music Colletive (CAN), Suzanne Kite (Oglála Lakȟóta), Nannaam (Finaland/Greenland) , Silla and Rise (Inuk/Canada), and Classic Roots (Anishinaabe). They worked at The Music Gallery (Toronto) as an Artistic Associate and curated numerous concerts over two years, and have curated panels for The Music Gallery, the Canadian New Music Network and the Indigenous Curatorial Collective.

Shortt also offers their voice to the Canadian Opera Company’s Circle of Artists (sparking conversation around institutional change at the COC and speaking directly to decision-makers to shape commitments that will support Indigenous communities with relationships based on reciprocity, caring and mutual respect) and previously with the Canadian Music Centre’s Indigenous Advisory Council (its mandate is to provide recommendations to CMC for appropriately redressing instances of misuse in compositions on an ongoing, case-by-case basis).

In 2023-24 they were the Artist-in-Residence at Carleton University’s Music Department, and the University of Toronto Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies as well as the Indigenous Curator-in-Residence at Hamilton Arts Inc resulting in an exhibit in September 2024.

Shortt was awarded and named one of the 2020 Buddies in Bad Times’ Emerging Queer Artists, was a finalist for the 2021 Toronto Arts Foundation’s Emerging Artist Award, was the winner of the 2019 NUMUS Emerging Curator Competition, and was featured in the 2020 Winter edition of Musicworks Magazine.

-current as of June 2024