ARTIST: Tanya Tagaq
COUNTRY: Canada
GENRE: Inuit throat singing
ABOUT: What do free improvisation, Inuit throat singing, and hair-raising passion have in common? Add descriptors like mesmerizing, intimate and ‘pushing the edge’ to the mix and you begin to understand the breadth and endlessly inventive quality of Tanya Tagaq’s sonic equation.
Heralded by fRoots magazine as a “magnificent, unique, overwhelming life force,” Tanya Tagaq is a contemporary performance artist who uses the ancient traditional Inuit art of throat singing to bring her singular talent to audiences around the world. Since breaking onto the world stage in 2001, she has emerged as a Canadian national treasure.
Tanya is the first to admit that her music defies description. Alternately called primal, orchestral or free jazz, almost all of her performances are improvised and, as she confesses, “It feels like I dial in another frequency. I go to places where I surrender to all that terrifies and excites me.” The end result is a staggering array of music performance that portray in full colour sound the scope of her life experiences.
Born and raised in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut in Canada’s high arctic, Tanya grew up surrounded by Inuit and western culture. Although traditional music was always on the periphery, it was the sounds of pop giants such as Janis Joplin and the Doors that first captured her imagination. It wasn’t until her teenage years, while away at school, that she began experimenting with Inuit throat singing. She gradually developed her own solo style, fusing her contemporary interests with the ancient artform. Her first professional gig at a festival in Inuvik won the admiration of friends of the great Icelandic singer Bjork, eventually leading to an appearance on the artist’s 2004 CD, Medulla and a chance to accompany her on tour. The rest, as they say, is history.
As a solo artist, Tanya has released two critically-acclaimed albums with her band – “Sinaa” and “Auk/Blood” – both of which were nominated for Juno Awards (Best Aboriginal Recording) and (Best Instrumental Recording). The albums also took first place in several categories at the 2005 and 2008 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, including Best Female Artist (2005). Her commitment to stretching her musical boundaries has led to projects in different mediums and with groundbreaking artists. In 2005, the world-renowned Kronos Quartet invited her to participate in a monumental collaborative project Nunavut, which was performed at venues across North America and Europe, including a stop at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The ensemble reunited in 2007 for the creation of Tundra Songs by Derek Charke, which dazzled audiences at the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad and subsequent performances on international stages.
More recently, she has ventured into film, contributing to the soundtrack for “Diaries of Knut Rasmussen,” and wearing dual hats as musician/narrator for the award-winning National Film Board documentary, “This Land”. Her latest film project was the stunning video “Tungijuq”, for which she collaborated with musician Jesse Zubot and Montreal filmmakers Felix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael. The film premiered to rave reviews at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and 2010 Sundance Film Festival and also won for “Best Short Drama” at the 2009 imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival Awards.
Presently at work on another album, Tanya has no shortage of ideas for new projects, spanning the start of a throat-singer choir to experimenting in ‘metal’ territory. She’s also eager to continue her collaborations with artists outside her musical zone. Wherever she lands, you can be sure the result will be out of this world.
SELECTED PRESS REVIEWS AND QUOTES:
“I’m a huge appreciator of voices from many different places, qualities, languages, anything, but I’d never heard anything like that – like Tanya Tagaq. It was as though she had not only a huge string inside of her throat but she had a bow inside there, or several of them and so it was this amazingly complex vocal instrument. I just couldn’t stop listening. She’s one of my favourites – persons and musicians.” (David Harrington, Kronos Quartet)
“An absolute standout” (Michael MacLennan, STV)
“Finally it was the truly inimitable Tanya Tagaq who joined the Kronos Quartet for an entire mini-set, who before and after performance was obviously delighted to be in attendance and so rapturously received by the audience, looking demure and smiling sweetly. But for the duration of Tundra Songs, oh my! Almost impossible to take your eyes off as she took centre-stage in between the quartet, gutturally growling and moaning rapidly heavy-breathing and gyrating and crooning and then calmly narrating and at all times looking as though she was locked in some sort of trance state, the Canadian’s skills in Inuit throat-singing allowing a development into something quite extraordinaire as the Kronos Quartet provided swirling, engrossing accompaniment and kayak, paddle and other natural recorded sounds ricocheting around them. It was an epic sweep with which to end the night, and entirely fitting when over the course of a couple of hours the audience been exhilaratingly flung around several far corners of the globe.” (Michael MacLennan, STV)
“But it’s probably the penultimate set by Canadian Tanya Tagaq, a sometimes Björk collaborator, that really tests Hamilton Mausoleum’s remarkable sonic potential to its full. An Inuit throat singer who pushes an age old art form to slightly daft and frightening new abstract extremes, she prowls the marble floor barefooted, eyes closed, shrieking, howling and moaning like a woman possessed; when she finally stops and snaps out of her deep trance, Tagaq looks as taken aback as anyone by the primal, transporting power of her performance. If the dead still resided at Hamilton Mausoleum, some of the orgasmic grunting noises she made would probably have woken them.” (Malcolm Jack, The Big Issue, about Kronos Quartet and collaborators performance at Hamilton Mausoleum, Glasgow, May 2011)
“A pleasing and strange experience… She is an intense and odd performer.” (Nick Dempsey, BBC Scotland’s Music)
“Un’emulazione del suono della terra” (il Resto del Carlino, Italy)
“She was just mindblowing! People were completely lost for words… lots of tears rolling down at the end… Also I have NEVER heard an audience being so fierce about an encore, they would have screamed all night if she hadn’t returned! The guy before me said: “I’ve got no idea what that was all about but it was wonderful!”, another girl said she had never been moved to tears by music before and my friend Lorna felt so “raw and open” Tanya and I had to cuddle her better as she cried and cried… It was just amazing, Tanya is the voice of the Earth, its people, and its pain.” (Thierry Alexandre, UK, about Tanya’s performance at WOMAD 2010)
“I just wanted to say that her performance (at WOMAD) was about one of the best things I have ever seen, I was truly blown away, as was everyone around me. I immediately went to buy her cd!” (Kate Goodale, UK)
“A mind-blowing vocal technique!” (Time Out)
“A magnificent, unique, over-whelming life-force” (fRoots)
“Totally gripping” (Uncut)
“An extraordinary live performer” (Songlines)
“A truly groundbreaking artist, Tanya Tagaq is an Inuit throat singer, pushing the boundaries of expression with her voice” (Southbank Centre)
“Tanya is directly musically in touch with something that is almost a ghost. To me, it is something that is so special and so much a part of the earth and the land and the environment.” (David Harrington, Kronos Quartet)
“[Tanya's music is] like Edith Piaf or something…totally emotional.” (Bjork)
“Traditional throat singing is a game between two women that is an emulation of the sounds from the land. It is a very complicated game where you are making two sounds and you have to go back and forth alternating the sounds. The leader can change the song to the next verse anytime they want to, so you have to be able to follow them. It is not emotional, although it may sound that way. It is a game, you giggle afterwards” (Tanya Tagaq)
“Calling Tanya Tagaq an Inuit throat singer is like calling Yo-Yo Ma a cello player. Sure, it’s accurate, but it’s not the whole of what he does. Like Ma, Tagaq is the best of what she does – innovative, inspired. Seeing her live, she gets deep into her rhythms and her passions are obvious.” (Brad Frenette, The National Post)
“It was one of the most powerful shows in the history of the festival!” (New Forms Festival)
“David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet calls Tagaq ‘the Jimi Hendrix of Inuit throat singers’ and the analogy is spot-on. Like Hendrix, Tagaq seeks to elicit the valuable, primitive unconscious — the internal made external — that lies dormant and untapped in us all. Yet, as with Hendrix, it was the future-leaning, musically avant-garde approach she took in drawing out these primordial impulses that was the evening’s biggest thrill.” (LA Times)
“Tanya Tagaq’s passion for propelling her art form forward is striking. She’s the world’s most well-known Inuit throat singer and is determined to integrate her mercurial vocals—which range from the raw and guttural to the refined and soaring—into as many contexts as possible.” (Anil Prasad, Innerviews)
“Her pleasingly difficult-to-describe approach has attracted a global audience, as well as several high-profile admirers” (Anil Prasad, Innerviews)
“The amazing and powerful voice of Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq (…) it was often hard to grasp where the strings ended and the throat singing began. This is in part also due to Tanya Tagaq’s extended range voice and unusual vocal techniques that made her sound like a human resonating string” (Johnathon Bakan, Examiner.com, on Women’s Voices: Kronos Quartet historic concert at YBCA featuring Tanya Tagaq)
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY:
- “Anuraaqtuq” (2011)
- “Auk” (2008)
- “Sinaa” (2005)
SELECTED VIDEOS:
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61882203
Tanya Tagaq with Björk and Rahzel (live)
Tanya Tagaq with Kronos Quartet
Tanya Tagaq - Improvised performance for the Open University
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61926764
Tanya Tagaq @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: Next Wave of Global Sounds (15 Aug 09)
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61880162
Tanya Tagaq live at Palác Akropolis, Prague, Czech Republic (18 Feb 09)
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61881369
Tanya Tagaq live at The Cube, Bristol, UK (12 Feb 09)
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61880588
Tanya Tagaq live at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards 2009
http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=61880706
Tanya Tagaq live at Colors of Ostrava Festival 2008
Tanya Tagaq live at Festival Barroquisimo, Mexico (01 May 2010)
Tanya Tagaq live at WOMAD 2010, Charlton Park, UK (24 Jul 2010)
SELECTED PERFORMANCES:
- WOMAD, Charlton Park, UK (2010)
- Festival of World Cultures, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland (2010)
- Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Canada (2010)
- Druga Godba Festival, Ljubljana, Slovenia (2010)
- 2010 Paralympic Closing Ceremony, Whistler, Canada (2010)
- New Music Festival, Winnipeg, Canada (2010) (with Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra)
- Carnegie Hall, New York, USA (2010) (with Kronos Quartet)
- The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, Canada (2010) (with Kronos Quartet)
- London International Festival of Exploratory Music, London, UK (2009)
- Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn, Estonia (2009)
- Estonian Traditional Music Center, Viljandi, Estonia (2009)
- New Moves International Festival, Glasgow, UK (2009)
- Casa da Musica, Oporto, Portugal (2009)
- Palác Akropolis, Prague, Czech Republic (2009)
- Colours of Ostrava Festival, Ostrava, Czech Republic (2008)
- WOMEX, Seville, Spain (2008)
- Disney Hall, Los Angeles, USA (2008) (with Kronos Quartet)
- Theatre de la Ville, Paris, France (2007) (with Kronos Quartet)
- Kolner Philharmonic, Koln, Germany (2007) (with Kronos Quartet)
- Edmonton Folk Music Festival, Edmonton, 2007
- Winnipeg Folk Music Festival, Winnipeg, Canada (2007)
- Calgary Folk Music Festival, Calgary, Canada (2007)
- Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Vancouver, Canada (2007)
- Celtic Connections, Glasgow, UK (2007)
- New Crowned Hope Festival, Vienna, Austria (2006) (with Kronos Quartet)
- Carnegie Hall, New York City, USA (2006) (with Kronos Quartet)
- The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver, Canada (2006) (with Kronos Quartet)
- Guelph Jazz Festival, Guelph, Canada (2006)
- Atlantic Waves Festival, London, UK (2006) (with Sainkho Namtchylak, Shlomo, Dokaka, Maria Joao and Americo Rodrigues)
Listen to Tanya Tagaq interview for BBC World Today on the BBC World Service (04jan2010):
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SONGS:
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