By Selena Randhawa, Herald contributor
Weaving traditional Aboriginal beats with contemporary electronic sounds, Cris Derksen is not your average classically trained cellist.
After working with the likes of international rap icon Kanye West and Canadian baroque pop singer-songwriter Veda Hille, this internationally renowned artist will be gracing the NVIT stage Thursday for the first time in Merritt.
Originally from Northern Alberta, Derksen grew up with strong ties to her North Tall Cree reserve and Mennonite ancestry. These ties are evident in Derksen’s impressive repertoire of music.
“I take sounds from all over and combine them. [My music] represents different experiences from my life and these representations are very important to my art,” Derksen said in a phone interview from Ontario, where she is currently on tour performing an original play that features music from her first album The Cusp.
In 2011, The Cusp garnered critical acclaim and was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award. In the same year, Derksen received her first Aboriginal Music Award for Instrumental Album of the Year.
Derksen has also been recognized by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network as one of its rising stars and major publications, such as Vancouver’s Georgia Straight, have dubbed her as an ‘artist to watch.’
“My music has no real genre, to be honest,” Derksen said. “I would explain it as a mixture between popular and aboriginal sounds with a little hint of hip hop.”
Her latest album The Collapse features an eclectic mix of classically oriented beats with buoyant party jams, all backed by her signature cello sound.
After attaining her bachelor of music in cello performance at UBC, Derksen went on to perform at various events around the world including SXSW in Texas and the MADE festival in Sweden. Locally, Derksen has been a fixture in the Canadian music scene and has played at the Aboriginal Music Awards and Junofest.
It was while performing in Vancouver that Derksen was asked to play in Merritt.
“One of the presenters at an event I was at is a resident of Merritt and was excited to have me come out there and play. Of course I had to come out.”
Thursday’s performance will be Derksen’s only B.C. stop as she is leaving for Montreal right after to continue her tour.
Derksen’s accompaniment includes Joy Mullen on drums and a hoop dancer to add a new dynamic to her performance.
“I have some new songs that I want to play, and I have some new toys that I want to bring out,” Derksen said.
Tickets for the show are available at Black’s Pharmacy, Mandolin’s Coffeehouse and the Baillie House, and are $22 for adults and $17 for seniors and students. The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at the NVIT theatre.
Film showing Monday
The Nicola Valley Film Society is showing its third film of the 2013-14 season Monday night. 
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on the 2007 novel of the same name, follows Changez, a young Pakistani man, as he tells an American journalist the story of his time chasing the American dream on Wall Street.
Things take a sinister turn in this political thriller after the Twin Towers are attacked and a cultural divide begins to widen between Changez and his dreams, his girlfriend, and his life in New York.
The international drama premiered at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival.
The film starts at 7:30 p.m. in the NVIT lecture theatre on Nov. 18.
