Dominique Fils-Aimé Brings Jazz Tradition with Intention on Her First U.S. Headlining Tour
Dominique Fils-Aimé. Photo Credit: Jetro Emilcar.
This fall, Montréal-based singer-songwriter Dominique Fils-Aimé will embark on her first headlining tour across the United States, bringing her transcendent voice and magnetic stage presence to audiences in cities far beyond New York and Los Angeles. For the JUNO-winning artist, the tour marks not just a career milestone, but an extension of her lifelong dedication to music as a medium for love, unity, and human connection.
Fresh off the release of Live At The Montreal International Jazz Festival (via Ensoul Records), Fils-Aimé is stepping into new territory. Recorded during an unforgettable main-stage performance in 2024, the live album captures the warmth of that night: the band, choir, percussion, trumpet, and a Montréal crowd that has supported her since her first record. “That festival has been like an old friend,” she reflects. “They booked us from the very beginning, and they’ve been there to see me blossom through time.”
Though a live album wasn’t originally planned, the idea took shape after the performance. Her team had recorded the show as a keepsake, but her manager urged her to immortalize the moment. “It wasn’t about being technically perfect,” she explains. “The vibe wins over everything else, and that night was such a vibe.”
Dominique Fils-Aimé’s journey has always been guided by intention. She recalls her earliest turning point not as an award or accolade, but the day her manager joined her team. “I was making music for fun, with no expectation of a career. But when I realized I could create frequencies that reach people, that was success,” she says. For her, success is measured less in fame and more in freedom: the ability to create with authenticity, alongside the supportive people around her.
That same ethos extends to how she views collaboration. “You can go fast alone, but you can go far with a team,” she says with a smile. Her advice for emerging artists mirrors her philosophy of life: trust your instincts, surround yourself with people you feel safe with, and grow slowly, with intention.
Audiences experiencing Dominique live for the first time will quickly understand why she’s become one of Canada’s most compelling voices in jazz and soul. Her shows are deliberately structured without breaks between songs, designed to feel like a continuous story unfolding. “I want people to sink into their seat and live the whole thing as a whole, like you’re watching a play or a film,” she explains.
That immersive approach means she doesn’t think about which songs resonate most. Each performance is about the whole journey, not individual highlights. And while audiences may respond differently depending on culture, whether through boisterous ovations, quiet tears, or stoic reflections, she finds that the underlying emotion is always the same. “Since the show is really centred around the frequencies of love and connection, these things are universal. Everybody loves love.”
Much of Fils-Aimé’s songwriting draws inspiration from the natural world. “We sometimes talk about nature like it’s external to us, but we’re part of it too,” she says. Watching a seed sprout or a forest nourish its youngest trees has taught her lessons in patience, interconnection, and care; metaphors that surface throughout her albums. “Every metaphor or system that is present in nature is somehow present in our societies as well,” she muses.
Her trilogy of albums: Nameless (2018), Stay Tuned! (2019), and Three Little Words (2021)—and her most recent Our Roots Run Deep (2023) use loose, dreamlike narratives to explore growth, resilience, and humanity’s interconnectedness. The live album, she notes, exists alongside these projects, both a snapshot of a moment in time and a new beginning.
Although Dominique has already built a strong following across Europe and Canada, this will be her first full-scale US tour. “We’ve played New York and L.A., the main places everyone goes,” she says. “But getting to see many cities in one shot over a month is going to be a brand new adventure.”
Wherever she goes, Fils-Aimé carries the same mission: to meet people, share love, and create a space for reflection and connection. Whether under an open sky or within the cocoon of a concert hall, her performances remind audiences that music is more than sound. It’s an energy, a vibration, a force of unity.
As Rolling Stone Québec put it in their recent cover feature on the jazz artist, her new live album is “a perfect showcase of her musical journey so far, touching on jazz, soul, R&B, blues, gospel—even rock and hip-hop… the album is pure joy.” That joy now takes to the road, ready to ripple across the US this fall.
Tickets and more information about Dominique Fils-Aimé’s upcoming US tour are available now here.
