Going, going...Aragon!

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(MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS)

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   • Maria Aragon pens first original song, says she's just a regular kid

What else would Maria Aragon, who exploded into cyberspace as a viral music sensation, call her 2011?

"My year was the bomb," says the bubbly Winnipeg pre-teen. "Whenever I’m amazed I call it the bomb. It was just a blessed year."

In less than 12 months she has gone from typical, but anonymous, Grade 5 student at Isaac Brock School to globe-trotting Filipina-Canadian songstress who sang the national anthem for the British Royal couple Kate and William in Ottawa on Canada Day, starred in the latest Gap commercial shot in Los Angeles in October, recorded her first album in The Philippines in the summer and performed in Israel for Google in September.

And, oh yeah... her version of Lady Gaga’s anthem Born this Way has attracted 45 million views, the eighth most watched YouTube video in the world this year.

"Looking at the list of all the things I wanted to do in my life, I’ve already done them all," Maria says during an interview this week. "I told my fans on Twitter the other day I’ve been on 63 flights this year."

Maria’s astounding emergence as one of the most consumed Canadian performers in 2011 has earned Aragon Winnipeg Entertainer of the Year as selected by the Free Press entertainment department. Hers is a striking story about the power of new media to make instant stars.

"That’s awesome," says Maria, who has been recovering from a cold that has curtailed her singing recently. "I never thought I would get things like this. It’s only my first year."

Last February the Aragons watched Lady Gaga debut her latest single Born This Way. Maria, who turned 11 in July, loved the empowerment single, learned it in a couple of days and then had her 20-year-old sister Rojuane videotape her performance at her keyboard and posted it on YouTube, just as she had done about 70 times before launching her on-line hobby with her version of Taylor Swift’s Teardrops on My Guitar three years earlier. None of those videos had attracted more than 45,000 views.

The following day Gaga tweeted to her eight million followers, "Can’t stop crying watching this. This is why I make music. She is the future." Suddenly Maria’s cover was a must -see.

"I remember us joking about getting 10,000 views in a week but never expected a million views in nine days," Rojuane says.

Gaga was so gaga over Maria that she invited her to join on stage at a sold-out Toronto concert in March where they performed a duet of Born This Way.

"The neatest thing of all (this year) I have to say is getting to perform with Lady Gaga," says Maria, who shows off her ivory fedora autographed by among others Lady Gaga, Stephen Harper, Cindy Klassen and Lea Salonga. "It’s probably the highlight of my year. That’s how it all started for me and the opportunities started coming to me."

Those offers have come from all over the world, from appearing on TV’s The Ellen DeGeneres Show to singing the Philippine national anthem at Manny Pacquiao’s WBO welterweight title defence at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in November. Pacquiao is a national icon and when they met last summer he asked her to sing at his next fight.

"In the Philippines it’s every singer’s dream to sing at one of his fights," says the Canadian-born Maria, whose family came to this country 14 years ago. "That fight was a real big deal for me."

All her travelling this year meant she missed a lot of classroom time, so this fall she began home schooling. She is also beginning to write her own songs and takes piano lessons. She has few complaints on her coming-out in 2011.

"Everything has been really fun," she says. "We don’t do anything that’s too tiring. The worst part of doing this stuff is going on a plane. All the other stuff is so amazing."

Other honourable mentions for Free Press Entertainer of the Year:

- Sean Quigley, also made a big splash online with his YouTube video, Little Drummer Boy. The 16-year-old one-man version of the holiday classic has attracted more than 1.3 million views and warmed the yuletide for most who have seen it.

- Guy Maddin, the world-renowned film auteur, was a juror at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival, saw his 1988 film Tales From the Gimli Hospital presented at New York’s Lincoln Center with a new musical score, and was recently ranked the third-best movie director of the 21st century by critics at www.metacritic.com

- Sarah Anne Johnson, the acclaimed Winnipeg photographer and sculptor who often manipulates her photographs, was short-listed for the $50,000 Sobey Art Award for a Canadian artist under 40.

- Johanna Hurme and Sasa Radulovic of the cutting-edge local firm 5468796 Architecture Inc. had a stellar year. Together with Jae-Sung Chon from the University of Manitoba faculty of architecture, the firm was chosen to represent Canada at the prestigious 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture with a project called Migrating Landscapes.

Other highlights of 2011 were:

- Prairie Scene, a massive, $3-million festival of Manitoba and Saskatchewan culture, was staged at 35 venues in Ottawa-Gatineau in late April and early May. About 240 Manitobans, including the full ranks of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, participated in the high-profile showcase of flatlander creativity put on by the National Arts Centre.

- My Winnipeg, a landmark exhibition of 200 works by more than 70 Winnipeg artists, made a splash in France. It was shown all summer at La Maison Rouge, a prominent contemporary gallery in Paris, then moved to the French city of Sète, where it’s on view until May. The show, co-produced by Plug In Institute of Contemporary Art, the NAC and other partners, put an unprecedented international spotlight on Winnipeg’s often-quirky creativity.

- Todd & the Book of Pure Evil, the campy, locally produced by Frantic Films horror/comedy series, was a surprise hit when it debuted on Space last year, and it defied the odds again this year when it earned eight Gemini Award nominations and took home the Canadian-TV prize for best ensemble performance in a comedy program.

This year also saw the departure of several stalwarts from Winnipeg arts and entertainment world:

❚ Sylvia Kuzyk, who is without question, the most popular and enduring local TV personality in the city’s history, signed off CTV Winnipeg for good on Sept. 2, bringing to a close a 38-year career that started when she was introduced as CKY-TV’s "weather gal" in 1974.

❚ Tara Birtwhistle, a magnetic principal dancer with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, retired after 20 seasons with a moving performance in the title role of The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house as Birtwhistle took her final bows in May.

❚ Zaz Bajon, the fiscally-vigilant general manager of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre ended a 30-year run — 25 of which recorded surpluses. He was honoured with a Making a Difference award at the Mayor’s Luncheon for the Arts in June.

— with files by Alison Mayes and Brad Oswald