Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Friday, September 7, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - Azure DeGrow said it's ironic that she was voted Yellowknife's favourite musician as she is dead set against competing on a musical level.

Azure DeGrow, who is a classically trained percussionist, is shown here playing her marimba. - Laura Power/NNSL photo

Ever since she won the Music in the Park competition in 2005, she felt that competing wasn't necessarily fair. She said she realized that her music was chosen not because of her level of talent, but because of the criteria that it fit into.

"That doesn't mean that I was the best musician up there," she said. "Since then, I promised myself I'd never compete again ... there are so many things that make a good musician. It's all relative to who you are."

But recently, when Yellowknifer readers were asked to write or call in with their favourite local musicians or bands, DeGrow came out on top.

Readers wrote in with quite a variety of answers, compiling a list of 24 bands and soloists.

But DeGrow was the only one of the named artists who emerged with more than three votes.

A long-time Yellowknifer, she remembers when her interest was first piqued in music. She said it was in Grade 4 when she studied music with her teacher at the time, Bill Gilday.

"I remember the first class ... ever since then I just really liked music," she said.

She studied music again when she went to university to become a teacher, but she never intended to make a career out of it.

"I always just want to have music in my life - I don't want to make a living with it 'cause it changes it," she said.

In the past few years, DeGrow has played at jams and onstage both solo and with various other performers. But while people may know her for the original songs she plays on guitar, percussion is her first passion.

Not everyone knows that she was classically trained as a percussionist, and only began playing the guitar in 2005.

She said she will have the opportunity to use her skills again this season, as she will play with the Yellowknife Choral Society when it needs a percussionist.

"I'm pretty excited to get back into what I really like to do," she said.

One of the notable things about Yellowknife's music scene, she said, is that people are very supportive. She said people watch each other grow as musicians.

"I don't think that if I played in Edmonton or Vancouver that people would be as forgiving," she said.

After receiving a grant recently, DeGrow is now recording a CD of about a dozen original songs.

But she has unique plans for the production of this CD - she hopes to get a good number of the city's musicians involved.

The vocal and guitar tracks have already been laid down, and the next step is to let other musicians write the rest.

DeGrow, who plans on making the CD a winter activity, said it will be interesting to see how a project like this will work in a city full of musicians.