Image of nominees for best country album for the 2017 Indigenous Music Awards.

Richard Froese
Spotlight
A musician from Kinuso has been nominated for the 2017 Indigenous Music Awards set for May 19 in Winnipeg.

Cory Cardinal, a member of Swan River First Nation, is one of five nominees for best country album for North of Town Roads that he produced one year ago.

“I am very excited about my nomination from the Indigenous Music Awards,” says Cardinal, 40, a constable with Lakeshore Regional Police Service since 2009 based in Driftpile.
“I am humbled as the other artists being nominated for this category with me are amazing.”

He says the nomination could be pivotal in his music endeavours.

“The potential from this level of exposure is immense in that opportunities to have my music showcased on one the biggest artist acknowledgement platforms in Canada is what makes it exciting, because you never know what can come next,” Cardinal says.

He will attend the awards ceremony with two of his band mates, Ian Rossiter and Tristan Galinski and his executive producer John Mcree, who have played a huge role in the success the album is achieving.

“We won’t be performing for the awards show, but again this is one of those potential opportunities from being acknowledged by the awards panel that can offer us perhaps next year to do a live performance, which would be the ultimate experience,” says Cardinal.
“Win or lose, this nomination allows me to step through doors in networking with other artists, publishers and the list goes on.”

The event will celebrate and honour achievements from Indigenous artists and industry professionals around the globe.

“North of Town Roads” features many songs he wrote and com posed from a career that started two decades ago.
“I released the CD because it was simply an aspiration of mine, something I wanted to do to say I did it,” says Cardinal.
“I’ve been an active musician for 20 years so I decided to put music out there that was from something I created, not to be rich or famous from it.”

His music has no real focus or message from the music.

“It is basically music I composed, and threw in some lyrics,” says Cardinal.

Formerly known as the Aboriginal Peoples’ Choice Music Awards, the event is set to hit Winnipeg’s Club Regent Event Centre.

More than 200 nominations from across North America were submitted in 18 different categories.

Cover of the first CD by Cory Cardinal of Kinuso. See story on page 3