Beatrice Deer’s new album is geared to a somewhat younger audience. Well-known for her Indie-rock/modern folk style which she masterfully blends with traditional Inuit stories and throat singing, this fall Deer released an album of 15 Inuktitut children’s songs, titled, “Little Songs.” The Nunavik musician teamed up with ESUMA to produce the project based on a KI curriculum book created by Evie Mark.
“(Evie) travelled to all the Nunavik communities, and she recorded the elders singing all the traditional songs that they know,” Beatrice explained. “So, through that, through her recordings, that’s how I learned the songs.” Deer is most grateful to those elders who shared their songs, and said her favourite on the album is Kinngamiurjuiguuq, which she remembers learning as a little girl from her auntie, who was also her Grade 1 teacher. “She taught us traditional songs and that was one of them and I remember really loving the melody.”
Beatrice had wanted to record a children’s album for many years when ESUMA put out a call for projects to fund. The ESUMA initiative was created by KRG to support Nunavik students in developing their full potential, and the children’s album project proposal fit. “It’s important because kids are important, and they need something fun to listen to,” Beatrice said. “As Inuit artists we’re often focused on our own projects and that’s OK. We make music for adults and adult subject matter, but I wanted to make this for kids. And it goes with my values with preserving language and teaching traditional songs because that’s part of our oral history.”
The album’s launch was held in late November at the elementary school in Salluit, where Beatrice and her band put on a concert that was broadcast both on TNI radio, and to all the other elementary school in Nunavik, something she said was very special. “It’s the first of its kind so that was fun to be a part of.”
Recorded last year, the not-for-profit album also features Nunavik Sivunitsavut students on three tracks, and some individual students, like Kathy Snowball, playing the accordion on one of the songs and Angelina Gordon throat singing on another.
While available on all online platforms, hard copy CDs will also be gifted to schools and daycares in Nunavik and to people who have Inuit children in foster care in the south.
