2012 | New Artist of the Year (sponsored by FACTOR and Radio Starmaker Fund) | Alyssa Reid | | The JUNO Awards

In many ways Alyssa Reid is like any 18-year-old Canadian teenager. She recently graduated from her Brampton, Ontario high school where she was a dedicated player on the girl’s rugby team (much to her music label’s chagrin). Until recently, she poured coffee part-time at a local Tim Hortons to scrape together enough cash to buy her first car. The Edmonton, Alberta native’s life however has been anything but conventional. With her family frequently picking up and moving around Alberta and ultimately migrating to Ontario, Alyssa has found herself having to repeatedly adapt to her new surroundings, frequently uprooted from friends and having to regularly make new friends, and adapt to new schools, finding a sense of stability was difficult for Alyssa growing up. Through it all, her music has been her constant. Alyssa wrote her first song at the age of seven, and at the age of nine started taking vocal lessons. The self-taught musician writes on both the guitar and piano, both of which she’s skilfully mastered over the past few years.