New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Multi-JUNO Award winner, Officer of the Order of Canada, and recipient of the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement Susan Aglukark will release a 30th anniversary vinyl of her breakthrough major label debut album This Child on June 27. Originally released in 1995, this will be the first time the album is available on vinyl, with audio remastered from the original source tapes, specifically for this vinyl pressing - see full track listing below.
Though Aglukark released an independent album, Arctic Rose in 1992, This Child was her breakthrough album in Canada, with the first single from the album "O Siem" reaching #1 on the Canadian adult contemporary and country charts in the year of its release, making her 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.
Aglukark was often asked where the album's title came from - her reply is:
"'This Child', the [titular] song, was my artist statement, my call to personal action. I started with what I knew and at the time that I was writing 'This Child', what I knew was a life of deep alone-ness. I left home to start over, and this felt very much like disconnecting from something critical, a land-based way of connection which was the Inuit way and a most beautiful kind of connecting to humanity, the alone-ness came from the fear that I was disconnecting from this. 'This Child' was my song to my future artist and Inuk self, telling myself to write who you are so you don't ever forget where you come from, who you are and why you left."
On May 20, Aglukark and her full band will kick off the east coast leg of the This Child 30th Anniversary Tour in Glace Bay, NS and will wrap in Summerside, PEI on May 25. The celebratory anniversary tour officially kicked off in Gravenhurst and has already made over 21 stops across the country, performing hits from This Child through all the years to the current album with multi-media video support. See remaining tour dates below.
This Child 30th Anniversary Vinyl track listing:
SIDE ONE
1 This Child
2 Shamaya
3 Suffer In Silence
4 O Siem
5 Dreams For You
SIDE TWO
1 Hina Na Ho (Celebration)
2 Kathy I
3 Pond Inlet
4 Breakin' Down
5 Casualties Of War
Tour dates This Child 30th Anniversary Tour:
May 20 - Glace Bay, NS: Savoy Theatre
May 21 - Truro, NS: Marigold Cultural Centre
May 22 - Pictou, NS: deCoste Centre
May 23 - Chester, NS: Chester Playhouse
May 24 - Annapolis Royal, NS: King's Theatre
May 25 - Summerside, PE: Harbourfront Theatre
July 6 - Campbellford, ON: Westben Theatre
Aug 17 - Toronto, ON: TO Live - Scott Street Mainstage
Aglukark has been a spokesperson for several non-profit groups working with aboriginal and Inuit youth, notably through her writing workshops for Attawapiskat First Nation youth and her involvement in Northern Canada's food crisis. However, she has said that while she is proud to be a role model for Indigenous 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.
In 2004, Aglukark was awarded an honorary DFA from the University of Lethbridge. She was named an officer of the Order of Canada in 2005, and in the same year received an honorary LL.D. degree from the University of Alberta. In the summer of 2006, she performed nightly in the evening grandstand show at the Calgary Stampede.
In 1995, Susan won 2 Juno Awards for Best New Solo Artist and Best
Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording, for her debut 'Arctic Rose', and at the 1996 Juno Awards, Susan was nominated for Best Female Vocalist, Best Album (This Child), Single of the Year ("O Siem"), Best
Music of Aboriginal Canada Recording (This Child) and Best Video ("O Siem")
In 2004 she was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada and in 2008 was appointed as Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the University of Alberta. In 2016, Susan was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Awards for Lifetime Artistic Achievement!
2004 Juno Aboriginal Recording of the year "Big Feeling"
Susan founded the Arctic Rose Foundation in 2016 and in 2022 was selected for the Juno Humanitarian Award presented by
Music Canada.
