Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 21, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Leela Gilday's schedule is non-stop these days.

During such a busy time, in which she has played in venues from Milwaukee to Iqaluit, she felt she was due for another Yellowknife show.

Leela Gilday recently won an award for her music at the Indian Summer Music Awards. She is performing this weekend at NACC. - Laura Power/NNSL photo -

"I love Vancouver," she said of her new home, "but I really miss the North."

Before landing in Yellowknife this week, Gilday was in Milwaukee, Wisc., to attend the fourth annual Indian Summer Music Awards. She not only got to perform her single 'One Drum' for the awards ceremony's audience, but she also took away the award for best folk.

This, coming shortly after her first Juno award, is the first international honour she was won for her music.

"I was happy that I won 'cause I went all the way down there," said Gilday, who said she has recently travelled about 8,000 km in four days.

"People were really excited about the music and it was really fun to be there to represent."

Shortly after the win, Gilday spent a few days in Yellowknife before travelling to Iqaluit. There, she hosted the CBC True North concert - one of the seven annual installments of the radio program Canada Live for which she is the regional host - and played on the program Discdrive.

Musicians from five different Northern regions played at the concert.

"They were terrific," she said.

Now, she is glad to be back in Yellowknife, where she has a series of concerts planned this weekend. This morning, she plays for students at Sir John Franklin high school, and later tonight, she plays at Northern Arts and Cultural Centre.

The opening act for her shows tonight and tomorrow at NACC will be her brother, Jay Gilday, who is playing in Yellowknife this week for the first time since he played on Vinyl Café in 2006. Now a resident of Edmonton, he said it's "awesome" to be home.

"We came in the non-buggy season and the non-snowy season so it's great," he said.

Some of his sister's band, which will be playing here for the third or fourth time, will back him up for his set of original tunes.

After both siblings play their sets, Leela said there will be a "special Gilday surprise," of which she wouldn't reveal any details.

Plans for Gilday in the coming months will include shooting a video in Vancouver for 'One Drum.'