Laura Niquay

Laura Niquay is an Atikamekw artist from Wemotaci, in the Mauricie region of Quebec. She was awarded the Félix for Indigenous Artist of the Year and Indigenous Language Album of the Year at the 2022 ADISQ Gala, as well as the Teweikan Award in the Folk category, the Best Performance Award, and the Jury’s Favourite Award at the 2022 Teweikan Gala. In 2021, she also received the TD Indigenous Songwriter Award from the SOCAN Foundation. She stands out with her unmistakable voice and her bold choice to sing in her Indigenous language: Atikamekw. Her 2021 album Waska Matisiwin, which made the Polaris Prize Long List and was hailed as one of the year’s best albums, is a powerful and sensitive work that fully reveals her folk-grunge universe. In fall 2024, Laura released Comptines Atikamekw - E Aistahiak (The Six Seasons), a musical and cultural mediation project initiated by the Six Seasons Early Childhood Centre in Wemotaci. The album features nursery rhymes in Atikamekw, aiming to help transmit the language to younger generations through music.

As she works on a new album set for release in the fall of 2026, Laura is presenting her new live show Nir Wactenama ("I, the Light"). This concert unveils an even more intimate and daring facet of her artistic world. She explores deep blues textures and rich, enveloping vocal harmonies, supported by an all-female band: on guitar, Raphaëlle Chouinard from punk-rock trio Les Shirley; on drums, her close collaborator Sarah Dion, also a member of the band; and on bass, Marie-Philippe Thibault-Desbiens from the rock group Princesses.

Nir Wactenama is a powerful ode to inner light, resilience, and the strength of Indigenous women artists. A grounded nomad of her time, Laura Niquay continues to carve out a space at the heart of Quebec’s contemporary music scene, delivering moments of grace and deep emotion not to be missed.