Today the Juno Awards announced their list of 2019 nominees. With only a handful of East Coast artists appearing on the list it may feel somewhat underwhelming, but where they do appear there’s no questioning their taste.
The least surprising of the nominees named today is, of course, Tobique First Nation’s Jeremy Dutcher, whose album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa won him the 2018 Polaris Prize, along with five East Coast Music Award nominations announced this week, is nominated in the category of Indigenous Music Album of the Year. The album holds great importance, both musically and culturally. Dutcher blends his beautiful tenor voice with the recordings of his ancestors, masterfully illuminating what he refers to as an “indigenous renaissance.”
East Coast champions of bar rock anthems The Trews are up for Rock Album of the Year with Civilianaires, an hard-stomping dance frenzy of an album that has confirmed that band aren’t about to slow down.
In the folkier categories, Vishtèn’s album Horizons was nominated for Traditional Roots Album of the Year. The band were also nominated for East Coast Music Awards Group Recording of the Year and Roots/Traditional Recording of the Year, not to mention taking home awards for Music PEI’s Awards Congrès Mundial 2019 Francophone Artist, Group Recording and PEI Tea Company Roots Traditional Recording Awards this week.
A nomination for Blues Album of the Year when to Woodstock, New Brunswick’s Myles Goodwyn for his album Myles Goodwyn and Friends of the Blues.
A Video of the Year nomination goes to filmmaker Andrew Hines and Nova Scotian rapper Classified for the powerful video “Powerless.” The video unabashedly tackles the topic of Canada’s missing and murdered indigenous women.
In something of a surprising twist, Atlantic Canada’s strongest showing this year is in the category for Album Artwork of the Year.
Artist and illustrator Geordan Moore, better known as Quarrelsome Yeti, receives a nominations for illustrating Joshua Van Tassel’s seaside science fiction novella and accompany its accompanying concept album, Crossworlds.
Simon Dupuis also receives a nomination for creating the album art to Les Hôtesses d’Hilaire’s massive concept album Viens Avec Moi.
The 48th annual JUNO Awards and JUNO Week 2019 will be hosted in London, ON from March 11 through March 17, 2019, culminating in The JUNO Awards, on Sunday, March 17, at Budweiser Gardens, broadcast live at 8 PM ET on CBC, CBC Radio One, CBC Music on the free CBC Gem streaming service in Canada and globally at cbcmusic.ca/junos