Alexia Galloway-Alainga

Currently based in Kinngait, NU, throat singer Alexia Galloway-Alainga has worked, travelled, and performed across the North and South. After a lifelong interest in katajjaq (throat singing), Galloway-Alainga first learned about katajjaq from a workshop led by her sister, Akinisie Sivuarapik, and role model and friend, Sylvia Cloutier, during the Alianait Arts Festival in the first years of the festival’s existence. 

“I don’t know what initially drew me to katajjaq,” she recalls, “But my parents have told me that I used to imitate the sounds of throat singing when I was a child. I think the fact that I met my sister through katajjaq really hooked me to it, too.” [1]

Now a frequent collaborator with other circumpolar artists, Galloway-Alainga appears onstage with singer Riit in a CBC Music performance to promote Riit’s October 2019 album, “ataataga”. Earlier that same year, she performed and collaborated at the Riddu Riddu Festival in July 2019 alongside Sámi joiker, Hilda Länsman, and Sámi producer, DJ 169, as the festival’s commissioned collaborative opener. Galloway-Alainga attended the Riddu Riddu Festival a year prior and collaborated in the Circumpolar Hip-Hop Collab, bringing together Indigenous artists from 6 circumpolar countries. Going forward, Galloway-Alaigna hopes to eventually release her own album of throat songs and continue to celebrate and teach katajjaq. 




This Profile was made possible through support from the RBC Foundation’s Emerging Artists Project.