Centretown residents will be hearing some familiar names at the upcoming Juno Awards. This year’s nominees, announced in early February, include a variety of Ottawa musicians.
“After all the hard work, that’s the exciting part, to get nominated,” says Centretown guitarist Antonello Diteodoro, better known throughout the community as blues man Tony D.
His band MonkeyJunk is up for blues album of the year for its latest album All Frequencies, the same award the group won in 2012.
“It’s a hard feeling to describe,” he says.
MonkeyJunk joins electronic group A Tribe Called Red, classical pianist Angela Hewitt, singer-songwriter Amanda Rheaume, and Manotick rockers Hollerado in representing Ottawa at this year’s ceremonies.
A Tribe Called Red, which can often be found at Babylon nightclub’s "electric pow wow" nights in Centretown, leads the pack with two nominations: for breakthrough group of the year and electronic album of the year.
The three-man band’s innovative mixing of traditional pow wow chanting and drumming with modern electronic beats, showcased most recently on the album Nation II Nation, has garnered the group a lot of positive attention over the past year.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t win – everybody who is nominated has done great work, and it’s a matter of taste and certainly of repertoire when it comes to classical music,” says Hewitt, who is nominated for her recordings of Mozart’s Piano Concertos Nos. 17 and 27.
“Recording the Mozart piano concertos is something I have wanted to do for decades,” she says.
Hewitt is up for classical album of the year: large ensemble or soloist(s) with large ensemble accompaniment.
The third album in the pianist’s series, featuring the NAC orchestra, will be released this summer.
MonkeyJunk’s nomination is the cherry on top of a successful year for Diteodoro. T
This past November, Mayor Jim Watson announced that Diteodoro would be named to the Order of Ottawa for his lifetime contributions to the city’s music scene.
“That was quite a surprise,” he says. “To be recognized for what you do, and to be recognized so officially in that way, I think would be a great honour for anybody. For me, it’s a big honour and a wonderful feeling.”
Because he missed the November ceremony due to conflicting tour dates, Diteodoro will receive his award at a ceremony on
March 5.
Diteodoro and his bandmates, Steve Marriner and Matt Sobb, have also won 20 Maple Blues Awards since MonkeyJunk’s formation in 2008.
“It’s been five years of climbing upwards, and it’s been great,” says Diteodoro.
The musician credits his long-time neighbourhood with influencing his career as an artist.
“When I started playing, I started playing in Centretown. I’d play anywhere from the community centres to the street dances, to all the clubs that Centretown provides,” he says. “It’s a great place.”
Griffin Elliot, editor of Scene Magazine’s Ottawa division, agrees that the community “has a very supportive music scene.”
He says that Centretown’s large geographical presence within the nation’s capital yields a diverse group of people, culture and genres that “have bred a really original music scene.”
“Also there are plenty of places, venues for people to showcase their talent,” Elliot says.
Diteodoro says he thinks these local venues “nurture” and support local young musicians.
“There’s a lot of talented people,” he says of Ottawa’s music community.
The Juno Awards are set to take place in Winnipeg on March 29 and 30.