INUK THROAT SINGER-JUNO WINNER-TANYA TAGAK BORN
From Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, Tanya was attending Nova Scotia College of Art and Design when she developed her style of Inuit throat singing. Normally done by two women, she went solo because she did not have a singing partner. Getting her start with Icelandic singer Bjork, her 2005 CD, Sinaa, won three awards, including Best Female Artist at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and was nominated for the 2006 Juno Awards as Best Aboriginal Recording—the 1st of her five Juno nominations. In 2014, her third CD, Animism, won both the Polaris Music Prize and the Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year. In 2016, Tagaq was named a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2017, she and Buffy Sainte-Marie collaborated on You Got to Run (Spirit of the Wind), inspired by Alaska dog sled champion racer George Attla [see February 15]. She also won her 2nd Juno Award for Classical Album of the Year – Going Home Star. Her first book, titled Split Tooth, was published in 2018.
Sources:
Laura Stanley, “Tanya Tagaq,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, 7/16/2015. Retrieved 6/29/2019, https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tanya-tagaq/
Aaron Brophy, “Buffy Sainte-Marie And Tanya Tagaq Team Up For Polaris Collaboration Session,” Polaris Music Prize, 2/21/2017. Retrieved 6/29/2019,https://polarismusicprize.ca/blog/buffy-sainte-marie-and-tanya-tagaq-team-up-for-polaris-collaboration-session/
Photo: Nomo michael hoefner http://www.zwo5.de, 5/25/2012. Permissive Use pursuant to the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en