Four of the eight board members of the newly established Saskatchewan Indigenous Music Association (SIMA), (from left to right) Sheryl Kimbley, Donny Parenteau, Paul Lomheim, and Roland Corrigal. (Logan Lehmann/paNOW staff)

By Logan Lehmann

good tunes

New provincial Indigenous music organization established to help make dreams a reality

Jan 26, 2023 | 2:31 PM

A new non-profit music organization has been established to highlight Indigenous music of all ages from across the province.

The Saskatchewan Indigenous Music Association (SIMA) was announced on Thursday morning at the EA Rawlinson Centre with the goal of promoting and supporting Saskatchewan-based Indigenous artists, groups, and music.

Sask. music legend Donny Parenteau teamed up with seven other individuals to help create the new organization, including Dale McArthur, Darwin Roy, Paul Lomheim, Roland Corrigal, Yvonne St. Germaine, and Sheryl and Grant Kimbley. Parenteau explained to paNOW the goals of SIMA and how the organization will work to help Indigenous artists.

“It’s to recognize all Saskatchewan Indigenous artists and musicians,” he said. “It gives the artists the opportunity to have a platform for them to have something and a goal to go to. We want to have our own organization to help them with all of the knowledge we have as a board because some people might not know what it’s like to record a demo, ‘what do you do with a song after it’s done?’, you know there’s a lot more than just playing your song in your bedroom and just leaving it there, let’s go ahead and let other people hear it. So that’s what we’re there for, we’re there to help you and we’re going to be that hand to help you when you need it.”

According to him, the whole idea of starting an Indigenous music association came not too long ago.

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“Over in 2022 the idea came through,” he said. “It was an idea that I had cooking in my head and the first phone call I made was to Sheryl and Grant Kimbley. I told them about the idea first and I said ‘do you think something like this would work?’ and they said ‘absolutely, let’s go for it.’”

As for the reason behind wanting to make an Indigenous-focused music organization, Parenteau explained that he feels the Indigenous side of music is overlooked and isn’t fairly represented.

“The reason I wanted to do this was because all the award shows I’ve been involved with, whenever there was an Indigenous award and back then they called them Aboriginal awards, so whenever there was one, there was usually one nomination,” he continued. “There’s only one category you can apply for and get in but all these other categories right up to the Juno Awards, and no offense to the Juno’s but now, fortunately, they have been listening and now they have two categories for the Indigenous artists. They have a traditional and more of a modern.”

Since SIMA was just established, nobody has come to the organization asking for help. But Parenteau believes that once the word gets out, things will get pretty busy, pretty quickly.

Parenteau added that an award show will be taking place later on October 1 at the EA Rawlinson Centre to highlight Indigenous artists and music in the province.

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logan.lehmann@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @lloganlehmann