Bremner Fletcher

After studying traditional Opera at Montreal’s McGill University, Bremner attended the 20th Century Opera Performance Program at Alberta’s Banff Centre. Banff’s approach, which encouraged innovation and non-traditional performance with generative artistic collaborations, shaped his career. Working in the intersections between speech, song and storytelling, he has create solo performances which have taken him to festivals across North America, Europe and Asia. His six recorded albums stretch from the songs of John Cage to new arrangements of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell, with a special focus on the innovative songwriting of Kurt Weill and Bertold Brecht. He has performed with jazz bands, classical chamber ensembles, and orchestras and sung classical opera and avant-garde works from the 20th Century Classical repertoire. He has sung the American Songbook in New Orleans with swing bands, and toured Europe and Japan with Broadway ensembles. He specializes in the music of the Weimar Republic, working with small chamber ensembles, singing the innovative, radical songs of Weill, Hollaender and Eisler. One of his proudest moments came in 2015 in Yerevan, Armenia, when he was invited to perform his show Singing Into the Dark, 1933 to open the International Festival dedicated to the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.

Bremner says, “I strive to take risks in performing and to explore new ways of telling stories in song. I hope to create adventurous, innovative music that explores the contemporary world, is an asset to my community, and respects the legacies of communities and voices before me. Creating a song and a performance means collecting fragments of ideas, researching a moment in history, and stepping into the rehearsal room where I improvise until songs and stories coalesce. My work shifts with each project: taking its inspiration from history, celebrity culture, gender, music and personal experience and often focuses on the act of performance. I hope to create work that is popular, politically relevant, and empowering.”

Bremner has six albums:

His first, Bremner Sings Kurt Weill, was devoted to his own personal obsession, the extraordinary songs of Kurt Weill. Along with French pianist Stan Cramer, Bremner recorded sparse, heartfelt versions of Weill's repertoire, which stretches from the streets of 1920's Berlin to the dazzling lights of Broadway.

His second, The Sky Was Blue, created swinging arrangements of songs from Leonard Cohen, The Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell and others, placing them side by side with more traditional jazz standards.

His third album, '33(a kabarett), explores songs by classic songwriters from the  1930's, like Kurt Weill, Noel Coward and George Gerswhin. 

His fourth recording, Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed, is a return to the songs of Kurt Weill, but this time, after a long residency with a jazz trio at Edinburgh’s prestigious venue, The Jazz Bar, and new arrangements by Scotland's Artist of the Year, pianist David Patrick, Bremner reinvisioned the songs: "I wanted to stay true to the tradition of Weill’s music, but I also wanted to take a dark, slow dive into the heart of the songs: whether those hearts were filled with love or murder".

His fifth album came from a desire to combine his classical training with his love of the short song form. Nouveautes is an album of North American Classical Art Song from the 20th Century.  'The Year's at The Spring', by Amy Beach, America's first professional female composer, was written in 1900 and this collection goes from that song, right up to John Cage's wild, vocal roller-coaster 'Aria'. 

His final album of cover songs, Temptation, is a gently swinging selection of songs of booze, bars and cocktails, inspired by the cocktail culture and community dive-bars that play such an important role in the life of New Orleans.

Upcoming is an album of his own compositions, with arrangements inspired by the dark but swinging alt-brass street-band traditions of his beloved New Orleans.

On the theatre stage, for the last 20 years, Bremner has also been exploring New Cabaret, creating performance pieces that are an emotional collage of ideas and songs. These pieces have been performed across North America and Europe to critical praise:   "A stunning theatrical achievement"—Edmonton Journal. "Duthie brings passion, power and conviction to the songs"—The Stage. "Captivating performances of Kurt Weill's songs... beautifully delivered with power and emotion"—Edfringe Review. "Duthie is a baritone with operatic scope; instead of mere interludes, the songs become weapons”—See Magazine, Canada. “And my god, does he ever sing. Bremner's performance is jaw-dropping-my jaw literally dropped"—View Magazine.

Bremner has performed in a wild variety of venues:  stadiums in Tokyo, state theatres in Germany, improvised ateliers in Paris, ex-Soviet theatres in Mongolia and table-top stages in hard drinking bars in small towns along Lake Superior. He says that each had its own special, wonderful delights. 

PRESS: 
"And my god, does he ever sing. Bremner's performance is jaw-dropping-my jaw literally dropped" - View Magazine, Canada 
 

"Bremner has.... a voice of power and inner beauty that commands the whole space..... One feels seduced by the sheer power and beauty of this performance" - Musical Stages Magazine, UK 

"The power of Bremner's voice keeps the audience glued to his performance with applause after applause as each song is laid to rest. Singing in multiple languages and executing them to convey the emotion to the audience, not the actual words, shows artistic and masterful craftsmanship." - Plank Magazine, Canada 

“Bremner, whose credits include a hit Kurt Weill cabaret, is the real thing. He’s an intense and expert singer — and more than that, performer— of the ’30s repertoire, in English, French, German, Yiddish. “I don’t speak any language any more.” He gives a sardonic grin, cutting edges, and the sense of a lost era to Boulevard of Broken Dreams, say, or Thanks For The Memories. He makes Noel Coward’s arch little ditty Why Must The Show Go On? a question worth asking, and Lover Come Back To Me an act of mourning. Mac The Knife is a veritable slash of dissonance and horror.” - Edmonton Sun, Canada 

"When he sings, his voice is like a big, dark, sultry room --full of emotive and expressive possibilities. Even when Bremner sings in languages other than English, the passion and subtext come startlingly alive." - The Georgia Straight, Vancouver 

"Listening to Bremner sing is like sipping hot chocolate topped with cream, sitting on a sun terrace high up in the French Alps, snow all around." - Theatreworld Magazine, London, England 

"Folks, you have not LIVED until you’ve heard Bremner Fletcher sing ‘Mack the Knife’ to you.” - The Visitorium, Ottawa 

“Bremner channels a classic cabaret singer’s voice - his authentically menacing rendition of Mack the Knife will sand-blast the Bobby Darrin treacle from your ears, and his Falling in Love Again, sung in both German and English, has just the right touch of Marlene Dietrich/Blue Angel gravel.” - Edmonton Journal