"Susan Aglukark"

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Susan Aglukark
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Susan Aglukark (Inuktitut), born January 27, 1967, is a Canadian singer-songwriter whose blend of Inuit folk music traditions with pop songwriting has made her a major recording star in Canada.

An Inuk, Aglukark was born in Churchill, Manitoba and raised in Arviat, Northwest Territories (now in Nunavut). After graduating high school, she worked in Ottawa, Ontario as a linguist with the Department of Indian & Northern Affairs, and then returned to the Northwest Territories to work as an executive assistant with the Inuit Tapirisat of Canada.

While working with the Inuit Tapirisat, she began to perform as a singer, and quickly became a popular performer in Inuit communities. She soon attracted the attention of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who included her in a compilation of Arctic performers. In 1992, she released an independent album, Arctic Rose. The following year, she signed to a major record label, releasing an album of Christmas music that year.

This Child, released in 1995, became her breakthrough album. The first single from that album, "O Siem", went to number one on the Canadian pop charts that year, making Aglukark the first Inuk performer to have a Top 40 hit. "Hina Na Ho (Celebration)" and "Breakin' Down" became hit singles as well. The album was eventually certified triple platinum (300,000 copies sold) in Canada.

In 1999, Aglukark released Unsung Heroes, which spawned another pop hit with "One Turn Deserves Another". This album also included "Turn of the Century", a song about the creation of Nunavut. In 2003, she released Big Feeling.

She is not afraid to deal with painful subjects in her songs. "Kathy" is about a friend who committed suicide and "Still Running" is about the trauma of sexual abuse. Aglukark has also recorded a version of Amazing Grace in Inuktitut.

Aglukark has also acted as spokesperson for several non-profit groups working with aboriginal and Inuit youth, and has said that while she is proud to be a role model for aboriginal people in Canada, she ultimately sees herself as an artist with a universal message of self-respect and strength to which she hopes that people of all cultural backgrounds can relate.

Aglukark was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2005. In the same year, she was awarded an honorary LLD degree from the University of Alberta.

She currently resides in Oakville, Ontario.


Discography

1992 Arctic Rose
1995 This Child
1999 Unsung Heroes
2003 Big Feeling
2006 Blood Red Earth

The Life and Times of Susan Aglukark

On the surface, Susan Aglukark's life story is the stuff of pop culture fantasy. A preacher's daughter from the remote Canadian Arctic is discovered by CBC radio and signs on with a major record company. She eventually moves to Toronto and becomes a North American singing star. But delve deeper and there's a tangle of contradictions.

For Susan Aglukark is torn between two worlds - struggling to maintain her Inuit identity in the midst of big city fame, yet haunted by her past. If there is one constant in her life it is the tug of the North - at once the source of her inspiration and the root of her pain. Her songs are imbued with the beauty and tragedy of her people, who struggle to survive in a community ravaged by poverty and addiction. Rather than forget the place she came from, she uses it as a source of strength.

In her twenties, Aglukark was politically active as a voice for the Inuit in Ottawa. Today, she acts as a powerful role model for Inuit youth, emphasizing the importance of education and the spirit of survival. Aglukark has dedicated herself to her music and performing, but says her greatest joy comes from her baby son, Cameron.

"Chatting with Susan Aglukark…."
By Anita Large, AYN , Edmonton, Alberta (Jun 20, 2001)

It was June 20th, the night before National Aboriginal Day. The AYN staff was helping with the preparation of the NAD festivities. After setting up chairs and tables, we were invited to take a break and stuff our faces with pop and pizza. As I was sitting and chewing my pizza, Susan Aglukark silently slipped into the building. She was chatting with the audio productions people. At first, no one noticed her but when someone did, the buzzword got around that Susan Aglukark was in the house.

She went on stage with the microphone and began to do sound checks. She then started singing the song that made her famous….”Hina na ho ho henay.” Her voice captivated us. In awe, we made our way closer to the stage. It was like having our own private concert. She tested three songs, each one beautiful with lots of heart.

As soon as she finished singing, she came off the stage to return the microphone. Not knowing what to do, many of us just sat and stared for a moment. Slowly, we began to approach her. She started shaking our hands with each of us introducing ourselves. At that moment I seized the opportunity to ask for an interview.

AYN: Have you ever heard of the Aboriginal Youth Network?

Susan: Yes

AYN: How?

Susan: I was surfing the net and did a search for Aboriginal websites and the AYN was one of the sites that popped up.

AYN: What did you think of it?

Susan: Oh I didn’t get a chance to view it; I just briefly glanced at it.

AYN: What in your opinion do you think Aboriginal youth would like to see on the AYN?

Susan: I do a lot of presentation for Inuit Youth in the Artic and one of the things I address is the sense of displacement, suicide issues and where low self-esteem come from. There are a lot of youth that don’t know where they belong anymore however at the same time, youth are taking a stand. Youth are empowering. Many youth have realized that no one is going to empower them and they are beginning to do it themselves. Youth self-empowerment with Inuit youth in the Artic is now taking a rippling effect and spreading to other communities. This is good because, in the future, I want to see Aboriginal Youth do better than me. I want to be the one down the road asking for their autograph. If young people realize that they have more power than adults they will go far.

AYN: So what do you think that adults should do to help youth?

Susan: I believe the next step is that it is the older people’s responsibility to encourage the youth, to give direction without implying what needs to be done. Youth have amazing ideas. We are a resource and if youth want to do something, we are there for the youth. I had an amazing support system and it is important that the youth have a support system as well.

AYN: What do you think of yourself being a celebrity to many Aboriginal youth and people?

Susan: I don’t really see myself as a celebrity; I am a regular, normal person. I had no intention to become a celebrity. I only learned to sing four years ago. Prior to that I had no training and no experience. I used to question myself on stage, “What am I doing here?” I have now found a relationship with my singing. I am comfortable with myself. I do normal things like throw ball with my son. I am very approachable and very there. I am very down to earth. The only difference is that more people know me.

AYN: You are a big success; I was wondering about some of the obstacles you faced getting to where you are today and how did you overcome them?

Susan: Many of the obstacles were self-imposed. There was a period that I was very shy. I couldn’t communicate. I was very naïve about the world and I was very insecure. I was sexually abused. I hated the way I looked and I didn’t like cameras because the abuse also involved cameras. I had problems standing on stage in front of hundreds of people. I always thought I was too fat or not a good singer.

I knew that it was up to me to deal with my lack of self-confidence. Over the years, I began to accept myself and I stopped caring what other people think of me. I had a great partner and came across some amazing people like my producer. In addition, 80% of what healed me was writing songs.


Susan Aglukark at National Aboriginal Day in Edmonton (left).

I began to look at Susan in a new light. She wasn’t an unapproachable big star that was hard to reach. In fact, she gave me her email without me asking. Susan is a wonderful lady with a story to tell. She is a singer, a role model but, most of all, she is human. Thank you, Susan, for spending some time to sit and chat with me.

Anita Large is a former Senior Communications Officer for the AYN.

[achebeautiful]

Susan Aglukark,(Profile)

The sight can be found in almost every small town in the Canadian Arctic. Perched on the tundra, aimed at the endless horizon, giant satellite dishes bring into the homes of the Inuit such standard southern fare as soap operas, sitcoms and the nightly newscasts. Susan Aglukark grew up in one such community, Arviat, on the northwest shore of Hudson Bay, and readily recalls being inundated with images of a lifestyle far removed from her own. Now, the 28-year-old singer is experiencing life on the other side of the television screen, flying across the country on a whirlwind promotional tour and shooting music videos for her new album, This Child. But she still remembers the isolation she felt during her teenage years, which is one reason why her first major concert tour, scheduled for this spring, will be to the Arctic. "I know what it's like to watch TV and want to be there," says Aglukark. "I know what it's like not to be part of the rest of the world."
Long before Aglukark signed a major recording contract with EMI Music Canada in March, 1993, northerners considered her a star. They had snapped up copies of two independently produced albums, Dreams for You and Arctic Rose, and lit up the switchboards at CBC radio stations across the North with airplay requests. The appeal was obvious, starting with her springwater-clear voice - often likened to that of Anne Murray - the fact that she frequently sang in her native language, Inuktitut, and her fresh-faced beauty. But there was something else at work as well: many of the songs that Aglukark has written deal with the myriad of ills that are tearing at the social fabric of the North, including child sexual abuse and suicide. "The important thing to people up here," says Northwest Territories Premier Nellie Cournoyea, a friend of Aglukark's and a fellow Inuk, "is that the words of her songs fit very well with what people feel and what they are experiencing."

Small wonder. The pain - and the hope - in Aglukark's songs spring from her own life. At the age of 9, she was sexually abused by a family friend. But she did not confront her abuser until 13 years later, when she learned that he was still doing the same thing to other girls. In 1989, her testimony in a Rankin Inlet courtroom helped convict the man. But even that result, she recalled in an interview last week at the EMI recording studios just north of Toronto, was bittersweet: "You finally find enough courage and you can't help but be angry. The justice system gives him a year-and-a-half sentence. The rest of my life and the rest of I-don't-know-how-many girls' lives are ruined. A year and a half?" That anger, coupled with resolve, is evident in one of the new songs from This Child, called Suffer in Silence: "Don't you know that your heart can feel like an anchor/When you keep it all inside/No, no, don't suffer in silence."

Aglukark's family has also been touched by the wave of suicide that sometimes threatens to overwhelm many native communities. In Kathy I, the most emotionally wrenching song on This Child, Aglukark laments the loss of a cousin and close friend, Kathy, who killed herself: "Kathy, I set you free/On your journey to find your peace/In my heart you'll always be/Kathy, I set you free."

For all of that, This Child, which received its national launch in Yellowknife in late January, is no collection of dirges. In both production values and subject matter, it is a quantum leap from Aglukark's earlier albums. The result of eight months in a studio with the highly regarded Toronto-based producer Chad Irschick (who has also worked with the top-selling Rankin Family), the recording melds a number of diverse musical influences and instruments, including native drums, electronic synthesizers and a string quartet. And tempering the sombre tone of such songs as Kathy I are celebratory numbers including O Siem - the first single release from the album - which revolves around an Indian exclamation of joy at seeing family and friends: "O Siem, we are all family/O Siem, we're all the same/O Siem, the fires of freedom/Dance in the burning flame."

Such songs reflect the singer's determination not to get typecast. "I don't want to be dealing with heavy social issues all of the time," says Aglukark, whose own musical preferences run the gamut from Sting to Pavarotti. The eclecticism of This Child has raised expectations in her record company that it could be Aglukark's breakthrough album not only in southern Canada, but internationally as well. EMI Canada president Deane Cameron notes that affiliates of his company in the United States, Australia and New Zealand are committed to marketing This Child. Aglukark's profile outside Canada will also receive a boost when she travels to Australia later this month to perform at the Melbourne Music Festival. "I think that she has real international appeal," says Cameron. "I also think that some of her lyrics that relate to the Inuit are going to be of great interest to people in other countries."

It is heady stuff for the fine-boned, five-foot, two-inch Aglukark, who took her first tentative steps into the music business only four years ago. Born in Churchill, Man., the middle of seven children, she spent her early years moving from one Arctic community to another because of her father's job as a Pentecostal minister. In 1978, the family settled for good in Arviat (formerly Eskimo Point), a town of about 1,300 on the shore of Hudson Bay, 125 km north of the Manitoba border. Although she was always an avid writer - of poems, diaries and journals - her musical experience was limited to singing in her father's church and, briefly, as a member of a youth-group band.

After graduating from high school, Aglukark moved to Ottawa to find work, first as a linguist with the federal government and then as an executive assistant with an Inuit lobby group. It was during this period that she got her first big musical break. In the fall of 1990, Les McLaughlin, a producer at CBC North in Ottawa, was putting the finishing touches on a compilation recording of Eastern Arctic artists, when he received a demo tape from Aglukark. He was sufficiently impressed to arrange a one-day recording session. In the space of 10 hours, Aglukark recorded nine songs, all but one of them in Inuktitut. In addition to being included among the 29 cuts on the CBC broadcast disc, Aglukark later released the nine songs as Dreams for You, under her own label, Aglukark Entertainment Inc.

The Dreams for You sessions got saturation play on the CBC radio stations that service the Arctic and which, for up to two-thirds of the airtime, broadcast in Inuktitut. "The response was instant in the North," recalls McLaughlin. "It made her a star." The second album, Arctic Rose, followed in 1992. Heavily autobiographical, it includes songs that deal candidly with her own experience of sexual abuse, with teenage suicide and with the cultural dislocation of the Inuit. And it ends with a haunting rendition of Amazing Grace, sung a cappella in Inuktitut. Distributed mainly through mail order, Arctic Rose sold nearly 14,000 copies - about 10,000 of those in the Northwest Territories, which has a population of only 60,000. Those numbers, together with Aglukark's obvious musical talents, caught the attention of EMI Canada executives. After signing her, the Toronto-based company re-released Arctic Rose, which has so far sold an additional 30,000 copies.

Arctic Rose made Aglukark something of a role model for Inuit youth. Following performances in small communities such as Pond Inlet or Iqaluit, she would often be asked to address school audiences and groups of sexual-abuse victims. She did so, willingly, but found the experience sometimes draining. "It's like everyone you're dealing with has been victimized in one way or another," she says. "And when it's all you're facing, it seems like it's all there is in the world." But she continues to draw strength from her Christian faith, which she says influences both her music and her approach to social issues.

Aglukark, who now lives in Toronto when she is not on the road, tries to return to the Arctic - where her parents and siblings still live - whenever possible. While she finds city life "incredibly noisy," it gives her a chance to indulge in one of her other passions: movies. She also likes beading, sewing (she made her own parka) and cooking. As well, she is dating a local recording engineer.

Aglukark's emergence as a recording artist coincides with a resurgence of interest in aboriginal music - reflected in the success of Kashtin, an Innu duo from northern Quebec, and a recent compilation album, Music for 'The Native Americans,' put together by Robbie Robertson, a Canadian-born former member of the legendary rock group The Band. "Ten years ago," notes the CBC's McLaughlin, "anyone singing in a native language couldn't get played except at midnight on a 'roots' station. Today, that's all changed." Asked about Aglukark's potential for stardom, McLaughlin replies: "I don't think potential is the right word. It's going to happen."

Aglukark appears to be having similar thoughts. Until her work on This Child, she says, she felt ambivalent about the music business. But that is behind her, and she now feels comfortable calling herself an artist. "Once you accept something like that, it opens a lot of doors," she says. "Now, I'm ready to take on the world." She laughs self-consciously at the boldness of her statement. But something in her steady gaze suggests that she will settle for nothing less.


Author BRIAN BERGMAN

[achebeautiful]

Thanks to Leona, I am now familiar with an artist (Susan Aglukark) that has me very excited, and I want to share about her with you. I am sure that all of you would find her a wonderful discovery to your music collection, as I have!

The album "This Child" is amazing in every aspect. With lots of percussion, cultural sounds, soft beautiful music and a very inviting voice....not to mention great lyrics with a purpose and meaning, this album continues to grow on me with every listen.

Canada is to be very proud of calling Susan Aglukark their own. She is a beautiful person indeed. Very down to earth, the only reason that she probably cares to sell any of her songs is so that her message gets out. I honestly do not believe she cares one bit about any celebrity attention.

There are songs on this album that will make you more familiar with the Inuit people, what I have come to learn is the actual name for what I would call Eskimo people. They suffer hardship in a progressive world, much like the Native Americans in the USA. Alcohol, suicide....

Susan Aglukark gives to us music that brings attention to these issues. And do not assume that it is all sad music either. Moreso, I would say that it is a celebration of life, and full of wisdom music.

I think that Susan Aglukark is an amazing artist from just the little I know of her. I definately will be seeking more of her! Until then, I thought all of you should know of her too!

[achebeautiful]

Susan Aglukark

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Here are the lyrics to an absolutely beautiful song from the album "This Child" (but I have to mention that all of the songs are very, very good!)

Dreams For You

I can hear him preach
I can hear the words
I see his tears
I feel his hurts

And I know that he tried
I know that he did
I know that he loved

One Sunday morning
Daddy preached about dreams
He preached about you
He preached about me
And I remember I cried
Oh how I cried

I was told I was a dreamer
Wanting things I couldn't have
But daddy preached about my dreams that day
And daddy here I am
Singing my song
I'm singing my dreams for you

And I know that he tried
I know that he did
I know that he loved

I was told I was a dreamer
Wanting things I couldn't have
But daddy preached about my dreams that day

And daddy here I am
Singing my song
I'm singing my dreams for you

Please note that from what I understand, Susan's father was (or perhaps is) a preacher, so this song is very autobiographical.