Lifetime award for Aglukark
Renowned recording artist celebrated with national honour
NNSL staff
Northern News Services
Monday, April 25, 2016
ARVIAT
Arviat's Susan Aglukark was named as the recipient of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement April 14 in Ottawa.
International recording artist Susan Aglukark of Arviat will receive the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime achievement in June.
- NNSL file photol |
Aglukark, 49, is Canada's first Juno Award-winning Inuk singer and songwriter.
She will receive the country's highest performing arts honour this coming June at a ceremony in Ottawa.
Aglukark sprang into action to raise awareness of the high suicide rates among aboriginal youth this past year by launching the #ArcticRoseWarCry social-media campaign.
Her unmistakable blend of country, world music and pop is distinguished by her gentle voice, upbeat melodies, and moving lyrics sung in English and Inuktitut, inspired by her Inuit culture and by the issues facing Canada's aboriginal people, stated the Governor General's office.
CBC Radio recorded her first album, Dreams for You (1990), followed by her first studio album, Arctic Rose (1992).
In 1993, she signed with EMI Canada and released a series of singles and three studio albums.
Three more have followed since 2005, most recently Dreaming of Home (2013).
Her breakthrough album, This Child (1995), sold more than 300,000 copies in Canada, and its lead single, O Siem, a welcome and honour song, became the first song by an Inuk singer-songwriter to reach number one on the Canadian country and adult contemporary charts.
Aglukark is a passionate advocate for Northern communities and the people who live there, the Governor General's office stated.
She is the founder of the Arctic Rose Project, which helps create emotionally safe environments for aboriginal children and youth.
She is also the co-founder of the Aboriginal Literacy Project and the former chair of the Arctic Children and Youth Foundation.
She has served as a scholar-in-residence at the University of Alberta, as an aboriginal fellow at the University of Saskatchewan, and on the Arctic Inspiration Prize selection committee.
She is an officer of the Order of Canada, recipient of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal and has won the Canadian Country Music Association Vista Rising Star Award, Canadian Aboriginal Music Award, Native American Music Award, Aboriginal Achievement Award in Arts and Entertainment, three Junos and three honorary doctorates, a biography from the Governor General's office stated.
