Tudjaat

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Tudjaat
OriginNunavut, Canada
GenresInuit throat singing
Members

Tudjaat were Madeleine Allakariallak and , two Inuit women from Nunavut, Canada who are known for their recordings and performances of traditional Inuit throat singing.

History[]

Tudjaat was founded in 1994[1] after producer Randall Prescott heard Allakariallak perform as part of a backup chorus with Susan Aglukark's third CD. When he learned that Atagotaaluk, her cousin, was also a throat singer, he arranged to have the pair brought together with several backup musicians for a recording session which combined their traditional singing with modern guitar, keyboard, bass and drum music. The result was a six-track CD titled Tudjaat.[2][3]

Tudjaat features "Kajusita (When My Ship Comes In)", a song written by Allakariallak, Jon Park-Wheeler, and Randall Prescott.[4] The song, which describes the forced exile of a group of Inuit to the High Arctic in the last century, is a tribute to those who suffered and died as a consequence of a government decision.[5]

"Kajusita" won the CD's its producers the 1997 American Indian Film Institute Awards Best Song award, was included on a United Nations compilation CD entitled HERE and NOW, A celebration of Canadian Music,The Music of The First Peoples and Folk Music, and was made into a music video. Tudjaat was nominated for a Juno Award for Best Music of Aboriginal Canada in 1997, but did not win.[3]

The next year Tudjaat's "Qingauiit", written by Jon Park-Wheeler and Randall Prescott, was included on Putumayo's A Native American Odyssey: Inuit to Inca. Also that year the pair's singing was featured on Robbie Robertson's CD Contact from the Underworld of Redboy.[6] After the short-lived career of Tudjaat[when?], Allakariallak worked for the CBC Northern Service and then in 2005 became a news host on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network.

References[]

  1. ^ Kenneth G. Pryke; Walter C. Soderlund (2003). Profiles of Canada. Canadian Scholars’ Press. pp. 477–. ISBN 978-1-55130-226-3.
  2. ^ Simon Broughton; Mark Ellingham (2000). World Music: Latin & North America, Caribbean, India, Asia and Pacific. Rough Guides. pp. 359–. ISBN 978-1-85828-636-5.
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b Brian Wright-McLeod (2005). The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet. University of Arizona Press. pp. 23–. ISBN 978-0-8165-2447-1.
  4. ^ Richard B. Lee; Richard Heywood Daly (16 December 1999). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge University Press. pp. 438–. ISBN 978-0-521-57109-8.
  5. ^ "Nunatsiaq News, May 2, 1997 - Singing sensation Tudjaat woos southern audiences". Archived from the original on March 20, 2016. Retrieved January 30, 2012.
  6. ^ Reviews and Previews. Billboard. Nielsen Business Media, Inc. 21 March 1998. pp. 97–. ISSN 0006-2510.
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