Paul Cram Creation Award Winner receives JUNO Nomination

We are thrilled to announce that India Gailey, recipient of the 2023 Paul Cram Creation Award, has been nominated for a 2025 JUNO Award for her 2024 album Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth, the title track being her composition recorded live at our Open Waters Festival 2024, conducted by Karl Hirzer with Symphony Nova Scotia, recorded by Rod Sneddon and John D. S. Adams and produced by Jeff Reilly. 

This award allowed her as an emerging improvisor/composer to work with orchestral musicians to fulfil her creative vision, and she leveraged this unique opportunity in order to secure additional resources so as to make this recording possible.  And the artistic results speak for themselves... and shake the earth! 

Digital album available for purchase
https://redshiftmusicsociety.bandcamp.com/album/butterfly-lightning-shakes-the-earth
 

Watch the live performance here (or scroll below!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdCo29WtS6I

About the JUNO awards
https://junoawards.ca/about-us/about-caras/

About the Paul Cram Creation Award
https://upstreammusic.org/paul-cram-creation-award

Butterfly Lightning Shakes the Earth - India Gailey

 

I wrote most of the piece in the woods of Banff, mountains towering into the heavens with their prehistoric attitude. Tibetan lama Chögyam Trungpa, the late founder of the Buddhist lineage I grew up in, spoke about “joining heaven, earth, and humanity,” particularly in the context of calligraphy. The phrase can be unfolded many ways—balancing tender sadness with the light of compassion, uniting vision and practicality, letting go of dualism to integrate with the elements.

 

Lightning is the swiftest route between heaven and earth, displaying our fragility, waking us up to the electric web of our world. Small and vast at the same time, the most delicate butterfly, lonely warrior in a landfill, speck of dust constellation, they all carry power beyond what could ever be known.

This work was commissioned by Upstream Music Association through the 2023 Paul Cram Creation Award, with additional funding support generously provided by the Canada Council for the Arts and Arts Nova Scotia. Additional thanks to Amy Brandon, Jeff Reilly, and Dinuk Wijeratne, each for their precious guidance and inspired view, and to the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.