Nunavut’s first ever Juno Award-winning Inuk singer/songwriter, Susan calls herself the accidental artist. Susan grew up in Arviat, Nunavut and with “no musical orthodoxy” to draw from, Susan’s early years were spent learning as she was headlining.
Susan’s early writing (The Arctic Rose-1992) was a series of songs drawn from the thing she had left, a life of uncertainty. The past 25 years and the following 7 albums have seen Susan set on a path of personal discoveries, cultural reconnections and personal healing, a very different path than the one she imagined when she left her home. In her singing/songwriting career, Susan is most proud about reaching a place in her life where she knows she is right where she belongs, singing/songwriting and falling in love with creating.

Susan has garnered 3 Juno awards, received The Order of Canada in 2005 and most recently was awarded the Governor Generals Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award (June-2016).

She has performed for HRH Queen Elizabeth, Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney, Nelson Mandela, Billy Graham and The Countess Of Wessex.

Susan is also the founder and chair of the Arctic Rose Foundation and an Advisor on the Collateral Damage Project.

A passionate singer/songwriter and soulful performer, Leela Gilday has a voice that comes straight from the heart. Confessing her stories to her audiences with a gutsy voice and open stage presence, Gilday weaves her experiences as a northerner, a member of the Dene nation, and a traveller into a beautiful world that transports the listener.

If you’re from the North, Leela Gilday’s music is home. If you’ve never been, it will take you there. Born and raised in the Northwest Territories, she writes about the people and the land that created her. The power in her voice conveys the depth of her feelings of love and life in a rugged environment and vibrant culture as if it comes straight from that earth. Leela’s family is from Délįne on the shore of Great Bear Lake and her rich vocals dance across the rhythmic beats of traditional Dene drumming as smoothly as a bass line onstage the largest venues in the country. And she has played them all.

Leela has toured festivals and concert halls with her four-piece band through every province and territory in Canada. She has played in the United States, Greenland, Denmark and New Zealand and this year embarked on an ambitious European tour. Her live shows are where she connects with fans who have followed her on a 20-year career and where new fans are born. She reaches into their hearts and feels the energy of every person in front of her as she guides them on a journey through song and experience. She believes music has an inexplicable effect on people. It is a place where she can share light and dark and the most vulnerable moments, with a clarity and genuine purpose that reassures her listeners through every word. She is a storyteller, and through this, reflects the world onto itself.
 
Five years after her last album was released—five years of growth, healing and head-down work—Leela’s fifth album will be released in Spring 2019. It is more raw, more intimate and more Leela than anything you’ve heard from her before.

“Leela Gilday’s voice comes straight from the heart. It’s the voice of a winner; the song of a warrior. That’s the call of Leela Gilday.” – David Newland / Roots Music Canada