Big news! I was nominated for a Western Canadian Music Award!
Magnetic North, a work for violin+piano from my debut album Ravens, has been nominated for the Western Canadian Music Awards Classical Composition of the Year. I am honoured to have my piece stand alongside works by other great Canadian composers, including Stephen Chatman, Marcus Goddard, Jordan Nobles and Edward Top. The award will be announced at BreakOut West in Edmonton, AB September 13 - 17, 2017.
On the album Ravens, the piece is performed by Yellowknife’s Andrea Bettger on violin and myself (Carmen Braden) on piano.
I feel a special pride in representing the Northwest Territories on the nomination list - I'm the only official NWT nominee this year, but I have to give a shout-out to the fantastic Jay Gilday (also from the NWT, currently living in Edmonton, and nominated for Indigenous Artist of the Year). Also interesting to note is that I'm the only woman in this category.
Many thanks are deserved to many people for helping me to get to this point. Thanks to Andrea Bettger for her beautiful playing of the piece on the album, Mark Adam for his great production, Denis Martin for his unbelievable mixing+mastering, Allegra Swanson and Nicole Reeve Blain at the CMC, Marie Coderre and NACC for helping to get the piece written and performed by James Ehnes and Andrew Armstrong (thanks to James+Andy for the premiere!), and to all my composition teachers who have guided me along the way (especially Derek Charke, Allan Bell, Bill Gilday, Michelle Hewitt, and Ardith Dean) And thanks to the WCMAs for the nomination, of course!
Magnetic Northwas originally written for renowned Canadian violinist James Ehnes, and he premiered the piece with pianist Andrew Armstrong in Yellowknifein May 2016, and later performed it at the prestigious Koerner Hall as part of Toronto’s C21 Festivalas well as in Whitehorse as part of his cross-Canadian tour.