At the age of 15, after attending school in Cambridge Bay, Tagaq went to Yellowknife, Northwest Territories to attend Sir John Franklin High School where she first began to practice throat singing. She later studied visual arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and while there developed her own solo form of Inuit throat singing, which is normally done by two women. Her decision to go solo was a pragmatic one: she did not have a singing partner. Tagaq was a popular performer at Canadian folk festivals, such as Folk on the Rocks in 2005, and first became widely known both in Canada and internationally for her collaborations with Björk, including concert tours and the 2004 album Medúlla. She has also performed with the Kronos Quartet and Shooglenifty and has been featured on the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. In 2005, her CD entitled Sinaa was nominated for five awards at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. At the ceremony on 25 October 2005, the CD won awards for Best Producer/Engineer, Best Album Design and Tagaq herself won the Best Female Artist award. Sinaa was nominated for the 2006 Juno Awards as the Best Aboriginal Recording. Also in 2005, Tagaq collaborated with Okna Tsahan Zam, a KalmykKhoomei throat singer, and Wimme, a Sami yoiker from Finland, to release the recording Shaman Voices. Although primarily known for her throat singing, Tagaq is also an accomplished artist and her work was featured on the 2003 Northwestel telephone directory. Her 2008 album Auk/Blood features collaborations with Mike Patton, among others. In 2011, she released a live album titled Anuraaqtuq. It was recorded during Tagaq's performance at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle in Victoriaville. In 2012 Tagaq performed the theme music for the CBCtelevision showArctic Air. Tagaq released her third album, Animism, on May 27, 2014 on Six Shooter Records. The album was a shortlisted nominee for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize, her first nomination for that award, and won the $30,000 award on September 22, 2014. The album also won the Juno Award for Aboriginal Recording of the Year at the Juno Awards of 2015, and was nominated for Alternative Album of the Year. Since the initial collaboration with the Kronos Quartet in 2005, Tagaq and the Quartet have performed together at venues across North America, from the January 2006 debut of the project Nunavut at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver, British Columbia through to the New York's Spring for Music Festival at Carnegie Hall presentation of composer Derek Charke's 13 Inuit Throat Song Games. In 2015, Tagaq was commissioned to write a piece for the Kronos Quartet's Fifty for the Future project. Her fourth album Retribution was released in October 2016. Her show in Toronto in November was sold out. In December 2016, Tagaq was named a Member of the Order of Canada. In 2017, Tagaq and fellow Polaris laureate Buffy Sainte-Marie collaborated on the single "You Got to Run ", which appeared on Sainte-Marie's album Medicine Songs. The song was inspired by George Attla, a champion dog sled racer from Alaska. Tagaq has also appeared as a guest vocalist on songs by July Talk and Weaves. In May 2018, Tagaq announced her first book, a blend of fiction and memoir titled Split Tooth, which was published in September 2018 by Penguin Random House. The book was named as a longlisted nominee for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize and was shortlisted for the 2019 Amazon.ca First Novel Award.
Awards and recognition
2006 Juno Awards, nominee: Aboriginal Recording of the Year, Sinaa
