A song in her heart

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This article was published 01/03/2022 (1689 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Faouzia has climbed the next big step in her pop music career.

The Manitoba singer-songwriter picked up her first Juno Award nomination, for Breakthrough Artist of the Year, when nominations for Canada’s music honours were announced Tuesday.

She was at her home in Winnipeg when she found out about her nomination on the Juno Awards livestream.

”It was so exciting. I was sitting on my couch and I was watching all the nominations go by and then my name popped up. And then I was in shock,” she says.

“They don’t tell you that you might get nominated, they just say, ‘Hey, maybe you should watch this time; you should tune in,’ And so I found it a bit odd that they would ask that of me, so I tuned in. It was like a subtle heads-up, but they didn’t say anything until I saw it get announced.”

Faouzia, 21, was born in Morocco but moved with her family to Carman when she was little. She began singing as a youngster, and by 2016 became part of Festival du Voyageur’s Emerging Artists Program. She released an EP, Stripped, in August 2020 but reached international prominence with Minefields, a duet with music magnate John Legend that came out in October 2020.

A series of singles in 2021 rode Minefields’ momentum, including Secrets, Puppet and Hero, the latter staying 20 weeks on Billboard’s Canada top-40 chart, peaking at No. 21.

“They’re both going to be key points in my career that I’m always going to remember,” she says of the Juno nomination and her duet with Legend.

“It’s been many years of releasing music and growing, so this is an honour.”

Two University of Manitoba jazz professors are up for the Jazz Album of the Year, Solo. Pianist Will Bonness’s earned his nod for the album Change of Plans while his colleague, saxophonist Jon Gordon, picked up a nomination for the record, Stranger Than Fiction.

“We all play on each other’s records; I’m on Jon’s and he’s on mine,” Bonness says.

The Color, the duo of Jordan Janzen and James Shiels, whose album No Greater Love earned them their second Juno nomination for Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year; and Winnipeg artist Roberta Landreth, whose cover design for Steve Bell’s album Wouldn’t You Love To Know? was nominated for Album Artwork of the Year.

Landreth won a Juno in 2015 for album art on another Bell record, Pilgrimage.

“Although I have now probably done the artwork and layout on over 150 albums and singles, getting a Juno nom is an exceptionally rare thing to happen,” Landreth wrote in an email. “I feel that it can’t just be serendipity that lightning strikes twice on a Steve Bell project.”

Winnipeg teacher Jewel Casselman, who works at Lakewood School, is one of five nominees for MusiCounts Teacher of the Year, which was announced along with the Juno nominations Tuesday.

Montreal pop singer Charlotte Cardin was the big surprise Tuesday, landing six nominations, the most among any artist, including superstars such as Justin Bieber and the Weeknd, who received five each.

Cardin is up for several key categories, including Artist of the Year and Album of the Year, for her full-length debut Phoenix. Her track Meaningless is nominated for Single of the Year.

“I’m getting messages from my whole family — everyone is freaking out,” the 27-year-old said Tuesday over a video call from Paris, where she lives part-time.

“I waited all day to hear what the nominations were. I bought champagne. And I will drink it after this.”

Rounding out Cardin’s other nominations are ones for Pop Album of the Year, Music Video of the Year and TikTok Juno Fan Choice, an award voted on by viewers through the social media platform.

The singer has been on a steady rise since landing in the Top 4 of La Voix, the Québécois version of singing competition The Voice in 2013.

Nominees for Single of the Year also include Brett Kissel for Make a Life, Not a Living, Jessia for I’m Not Pretty, Bieber and Daniel Caesar for Peaches (feat. Giveon), and the Weeknd for Take My Breath.

Joining Cardin in the Album of the Year category are JP Saxe’s Dangerous Levels of Introspection, Bieber’s Justice, Shawn Mendes’ Wonder and Tate McRae’s Too Young to Be Sad.

Other big contenders this year include Mendes with four nominations. He’s in line with the total held by Pressa, one of the rising stars of the Toronto rap scene, and Vancouver pop newcomer Jessia, known for her body-positive hit I’m Not Pretty.

The Juno bash is set to be held in person for the first time in three years at Toronto’s open-air Budweiser Stage on May 15. The outdoor event will be hosted by Shang-Chi and Kim’s Convenience star Simu Liu and broadcast on CBC.

Performers will include Cardin, Arkells, Avril Lavigne and Mustafa, organizers said Tuesday.

For Faouzia, who was named one of “12 style stars set to make 2022 exciting” by Vogue, attending the awards ceremonies means there are tough decisions ahead.

”As soon as we got the announcement and we heard that I was nominated, my team just started reaching out and they’re like ‘What is she going to wear? What’s the hair going to be like?’ literally seconds after,” she says laughing.

alan.small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall

— with files from The Canadian Press