As of midnight last night, we are now in phase two of our 2019 recording competition! You submitted your music, now we’re going to listen. We will be diving into the hard process of determining finalists this week, sifting through your songs, CV’s, and stories, searching for the artists with a pinch of the ‘X factor’ and a little dash of ‘je ne sais quoi.’
This contest has brought us more entries than ever before, and on behalf of the Bent River Records team, thank you for sharing your hard work, creativity, and talent with us. We can’t wait to hear your music and see the competition winner onstage, performing at the Bent River Records Artist Spotlight in April.
Last but not least, we have Chris Martin joining the rest of our amazing judges.
Chris Martin began his career in the music industry in 1990 as a booking agent. His company, The Bristol Agency has worked with the likes of Uisce Beathe, Jr. Gone Wild, Bill Bourne and Shannon Johnson, Painting Daisies and Ann Vriend. As a manager and music consultant, Chris has assisted in the development of emerging Canadian artists within Canada and abroad. He has sat on conference panels at the Ontario Council of Folk Festivals, Western Canadian Music Week, Canadian Country Music Week and others. Since 2006 Chris has worked at CBC Edmonton where he is currently the Associate Producer of Saturday Night Blues! He will be an amazing contribution to our panel and we can’t wait for him to see all of your submissions!
Don’t forget that the submission deadline for the Bent River Record 2019 Recording Competition is almost here! Monday, October 15th will be the last day that we are taking submissions. Don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity!
We could not be more thrilled to announce Celeigh Cardinal as one of the members on our 2019 recording competition panel!
Hailing from Peace River, Celeigh has established herself as an Alberta artist to be reckoned with, internationally performing “heartfelt, biographical inspired songs [that] blend soul and emotion,” as her website’s biography aptly describes. Give any song from her two albums or EP a listen and you’ll hear why Celeigh, Métis herself, is one of the top artists representing both Indigenous and Alberta music today! Her undeniable talent and hardwork have earned her the WCMA Indigenous Artist of the Year award, and both the Female Artist of the Year award and Indigenous Recording of the Year award at the Edmonton Music Awards. And we’re not done yet! Celeigh is also a recipient of Winnipeg’s REVEAL Ingienous Arts Award from the Hnatyshyn Foundation.
Outside of her performing work, Celeigh has been making even more history. She is a radio personality at CKUA-FM 94.9 in Edmonton and a member of Edmonton’s Art Column, the In Crowd… and the first Indigenous person to hold either position! No stranger to Alberta’s music scene, to musical success, or to breaking through glass ceilings, Caleigh will provide an essential voice in the selection process of the Bent River competition.
We’d like to give a warm welcome to Adam Fox, who will be on the panel of judges for the Bent River Records 2019 Recording Competition!
Adam Fox hails from a small farm in Essex County, Ontario, but his passion for music and story has led him to Windsor, Toronto, Edmonton, and Calgary. He studied journalism and English literature before immersing himself in community radio. He’s worked in radio and print media, for CBC, CKUA, CJAM, and CHRY as a journalist, music director, and in programming and general management.
In his current role as Director of Programs for National Music Centre, he contributed to the first permanent exhibition of music in Canada and oversees a team that delivers Education, Artist Programs, Live Music and Public Programs. He’s maintained a creative pursuit through the years, producing, releasing, and performing music with various projects.
Eliana is thrilled to be joining the Bent River Records team as an associate for the 2019-2020 year! They are looking forward to being involved in many aspects of the team, including but not limited to community outreach, volunteer coordination, distribution, and marketing. Eliana is currently completing their Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance at MacEwan University. Outside of time spent at MacEwan, Eliana is a music educator, multidisciplinary artist and craftsperson, burlesque dancer, and community organizer. They recently started their own project, WARA WARA, which combines sounds of folk and rock to create music and poetry that is raw, vulnerable, and politically charged.
Cam is in his third year of studies in the design program at MacEwan. He has a passion for branding, playing with typography, rock climbing, and has always been intrigued by album cover artwork. It’s always neat to see the choices that artists make; how letterforms interact with images on the page, etc. He’ll use any opportunity he gets to incorporate hand-lettered type into his projects. When a project in his second year typography class turned out to be a competition to design an album cover, he was super excited. And after being selected as the winner of the record cover design competition, Cam took interest in the record label and thought it would be a great opportunity to take a deeper dive into the workings of the music industry. This year he’ll be working as an associate for the label, focusing on graphic design. Can’t wait to see what the future holds!
As a third year design student, Liam is very excited to start working with the Bent River Records team this year! “I am passionate about music and have been drawn to and inspired by album artwork for as long as I can remember, and am ready to see how my interests and inspirations can contribute to the success of Macewan’s label. Beyond design I am a practicing mixed-media printmaker working out of SNAP studios, and successfully held my first solo exhibition titled “Fear of the Void” at the end of August.” —Liam
