Carmen Braden is a genre-blurring creator and performer of new, beautiful and intriguing music. A dynamic force in the world of new music, Carmen hails proudly from the Yellowknife, NWT. She is a Juno-nominated composer, two-time winner of the Western Canadian Music Award for Classical Composer of the Year, and has worked with internationally renowned ensembles and performers. Her fourth album “A Hard Light” was released in December 2024.

In her singer-songwriter craft, she gently shifts the focus away from genre-bound expectations to craft a journeying arc with moments of 90’s electro-pop, folk, jazz and country. Whether it’s for solo classical players or her own songwriting projects, Carmen’s writing delves into the beauty and struggles of the everyday: reflecting relationships, parenthood, and the environment with joy, stark realness, and undercurrents of quirky humour.

Working actively as a “multi-talented artist” (BK on the Scene), Carmen is recognized as an “acoustic ambassador of the Canadian Subarctic” (Musicworks). She has played intimate theatres and main stage folk festivals, and smoothly jumps between genres of songwriting and composing. Her contemporary classical compositions are nationally recognized, with commissions and performances by world class ensembles and performers including the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, James Ehnes and the Canadian Chamber Choir.

Carmen has released four studio albums: A Hard Light (2024) Seed Songs (2021), Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars (2019) and Ravens (2017). Additional nominations include Singer-songwriter of the Year (NWT Music Awards), Rock Video of the Year, (Independent Music Video Awards 2025), Classical Composer of the Year (WCMA 2025), Classical Album of the Year 2020 (East Coast Music Award - Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars), Classical Artist of the Year (WCMA 2019), and Classical Composition of the Year (WCMA 2017).

Carmen has been called “a talented, bold musician” (Up Here Magazine). “Braden’s music is clear, and it is bright…this recording is captured psychogeography.” (Whole Note - for Songs of the Invisible Summer Stars); and her songwriting is “quirky and clever…à la Joni Mitchell” (The WholeNote).

Website: https://www.carmenbraden.com/

Youtube: @CarmenBradenMusic

Instagram: @blackicesounds

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarmenBraden