Two Inuit women take home Juno Awards

CBC

31-03-2025

Two Inuit women earned awards at the 2025 Juno Awards in Vancouver, B.C., over the weekend.
Singer-songwriter Elisapie won the adult alternative album of the year category for Inuktitut while Deantha Edmunds, an opera singer, won classical composition of the year for her piece, Angmalukisaa.
Elisapie said during her acceptance speech at the Juno Awards Gala on Saturday evening that the award was both "so beautiful and so heavy."
"I'm so proud to be an Inuk woman, I'm so proud to be singing in my language and I would just like to say thank you to all the artists who accepted for me to translate their songs, who meant so much to us for the last 40 years."
It was Elisapie's second Juno win — after winning the award for contemporary Indigenous artist of the year last year.
Her album features 10 pop and classic rock tracks, like Dreams by Fleetwood Mac and Blondie's Heart of Glass — but each one is translated into Inuktitut, which Elisapie heard a lot growing up in Salluit, Que.
Inuktitut had also been nominated for album of the year — a category won by Tate McRae with Think Later.
Deantha Edmunds of Newfoundland and Labrador, meanwhile, told the audience that her award meant a lot.
She thanked her family for their support, including her mother Loretta and her late father Albert Edmunds.
"I would like to thank my husband Darin and our beautiful daughter Annabelle, who are at home cheering me on. I miss you guys," said Edmunds.
Edmunds was also nominated for classical composition of the year in the large ensemble category for the album Alikeness. Ispiciwin, an album featuring a song by Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden called Crooked by Nature, had also been nominated in the category.