Diyet and the Love Soldiers

The Lincoln Theatre and the Mount Vernon Arts Commission are proud to present Diyet & the Love Soldiers! Diyet was born in a tent and spent her childhood on the ancestral lands of the Kluane First Nation people in Canada’s Yukon Territory. Coming from a family rooted in traditions but tempered with a good sense of adventurous hippie attitudes, Diyet has created a musical presence that is as diverse as her Southern Tutchone, Tlingit, Japanese and Scottish heritage. Diyet discovered her voice singing on the school bus, went on to acquire a degree in music, and then became a published songwriter in Vancouver, BC. When the pull of the North was too strong, she packed her bags, and her Dutch husband moved back to her village of 90 people without a plan or even a pub to play in. The result of this unlikely career move has been international collaborations, extensive touring and three acclaimed albums: The Breaking Point, When You Were King, and Diyet & The Love Soldiers, which released in 2018 and received nominations for Folk Album Of The Year at the Indigenous Music Awards and Indigenous Artist Of The Year at the Western Canadian Music Awards, and won Indigenous Songwriter Of The Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards. Diyet & The Love Soldiers is alternative country, folk, roots, and traditional with catchy melodies and stories deeply rooted in Diyet’s Indigenous world view and northern life. Diyet sings in both English and Southern Tutchone (her native language) and plays bass guitar. Backed by Love Soldiers -- husband and collaborator Robert van Lieshout (acoustic guitar, drums, and percussion) and Juno Award-winning producer Bob Hamilton (electric guitar, pedal steel, and mandolin) -- this trio from the Yukon has a sound that can fill a big stage or capture an intimate room. During the last decade Diyet has performed nationally in Canada and internationally in Europe. Performance highlights include major folk, jazz, world, multi-disciplinary festivals and theatres in Canada as well as tours in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and Greenland. TV appearances include APTN Indigenous Day 2019 Live, CTV Atlantic Morning Show, CBC New Years Eve 2020 National Broadcast, and Canada Day 2023 in Ottawa. Diyet was featured in Against The Grain Theatre’s Messiah Complex with upwards of 300,000 viewers worldwide. Continuing to live with feet firmly planted in two worlds, Diyet’s adventurous and sometimes chaotic life is on full display in her music. She says: "yesterday, fishing for our dinner on the ice, the next day, on the stage singing for you!"