Kidjo, Blackwell, Pärt awarded Sweden’s Polar Music Prize

Kidjo, Blackwell, Pärt awarded Sweden’s Polar Music Prize

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Five-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo, Island Records founder Chris Blackwell and Estonian composer Arvo Pärt have won the 2023 Polar Music Prize, a Swedish music award.

The three “all made such a global impact with their music," Marie Ledin, managing director of the annual prize, said in announcing the winners on Tuesday.

Blackwell, 85, whose independent label started in Jamaica and signed artists such as Bob Marley, Cat Stevens, Roxy Music, Tom Waits, Grace Jones and Marianne Faithful, made Island one “of the most successful labels in music history,” Ledin said in a statement.

The award committee said that Kidjo’s “striking voice, stage presence and fluency in multiple cultures and languages has won respect from her peers.” The 62-year-old singer-songwriter has mixed the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America.

What's Up: Clara Hughes, Moving / Still: Animation, Rumble in the Burt, Send+Receive, Lotai as Chappell Roan, Scream & Halloween

Clara Hughes book launchMcNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park (1120 Grant Ave.)Tonight, 7 p.m.FreeOne of Canada’s most decorated Olympians returns to her hometown tonight to launch a new memoir about her healing journey, the roadblocks along the way and the search for new beginnings.Clara Hughes, who was born in Winnipeg and now lives on Vancouver Island, launches her new memoir Learning to Breathe at 7 p.m., when she’ll be joined in conversation by Shelagh Rogers, the former host of CBC Radio’s The Next Chapter.

Learning to Breathe is Hughes’s second memoir, following the publication of 2017’s Open Heart, Open Mind. Her latest sees the six-time Olympic medallist detail her use of psychedelic-assisted therapy to deal with physical and emotional ailments, navigating menopause, forging new relationships and more.

Hughes is the only athlete to win multiple medals in both the Summer and Winter Games (in cycling and speed skating, respectively), and is a member of both the Order of Manitoba and the Order of Canada. She’ll discuss Learning to Breathe with Rogers before signing copies at the store. The free event is also available to stream on McNally Robinson’s YouTube page.

— Ben Sigurdson

Developer ‘anxiously’ awaits judge’s decision on Granite Curling Club construction

The developer of a hotly debated project that would add 110 housing units to the Granite Curling Club’s parking lot has begun investigative work at the site while awaiting a judge’s decision on construction.

While some digging took place at the city-owned property last week, its developer said construction has yet to begin.

“I would call (the digging so far) investigative site work. It’s not preparing in any way for construction, other than to ensure that the reports that are required for any site have been completed,” said Jeremy Read, chief executive officer of UWCRC 2.0 Inc.

A heritage resources impact assessment will determine if the site has archeological significance. That work will check for everything from fossils to unmarked graves, said Read.

Letters, Oct. 15

Your news and reporting on the positive results of co-ordinated outreach coupled with enforcement combining social, medical and police services is important progress towards a safer and healthier Winnipeg.

Better wait for the next bus if a candidate promises quick, on-budget transit fixes

Winnipeg’s transit system needs fixing. But voters should be skeptical of municipal election candidates who promise to restore old routes, put hundreds of bus stops back where they used to be and somehow make everything better without spending substantially more money.

That’s not a transit plan. It’s wishful thinking.

Winnipeg’s transit network underwent a massive overhaul last year, fundamentally changing how people get around the city.

The new system has some real advantages, depending on where you live and where you need to go. It also has some serious shortcomings, including reduced service and less convenient connections for many riders.

Kinew won’t budge on opposition to criminalizing residential school denialism

Premier Wab Kinew stood by his opposition to the proposed criminalization of residential school denialism Wednesday, after some First Nations leaders criticized his earlier comments and asked him to reconsider.

Kinew said he doesn’t think Canada should make residential school denialism a crime, nor does he think it’s feasible to do, and he’d prefer to see it combated with education.

“When somebody has a question or wants to make a statement from a place of ignorance, the response isn’t to try to criminalize,” he told reporters.

“The response should be to try to heal whatever is going on with them that would cause them to say something hurtful, to try and educate whatever they lack in terms of knowledge about the true history of our country, and ultimately to find a way for us to all live together.”