A Juno-nominated musician, originally from North Bay, says his third album as a leader is the first time he’s gone with a single theme and inspiration for the compositions.

Shirantha Beddage says he wanted to take a page from his childhood fascination with science.

“I reached into my old physics text books and tried to find some things that I thought might be interesting to play out in a musical context,” he said.

Beddage says he came up with tunes that related to themes coming from the physical sciences like gravity, centrifugal force and momentum, to name a few.

Momentum is also the album title and is nominated for the Juno Award for solo Jazz Album of the Year.

Beddage went to Chippewa Secondary School and says a couple teachers, Betty Ferris and Mark De Sousa encouraged him to develop his own artistic voice, but his fellow students had an impact too.

“We had a nice community of students who were in the band that were really dedicated musicians and really enjoyed playing music, so that was pretty inspiring to me too,” he said.

In fact, some of those fellow students are quite involved in music today, including current Chippewa Secondary music teacher Marla Sunstrum.

“Marla is doing a lot of great things over there and she should really be celebrated for all of her efforts,” he added.

Other fellow Chippewa students in that mid-90’s time frame include Damian Dorschner, who teaches voice at the Prince George Conservatory of Music, professional oboist Erin Brophey and Dave Haskins, Associate Principal Horn of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.

Beddage says while attending Humber College, where he’s now the Head of Theory and Harmony in the Music department, he really felt the drive and pull to pursue music full time.

This is his second Juno nomination.

Beddage’s follow-up album, Identity was nominated for a Juno award for Traditional Jazz Album of the year in 2013.

He is also one of the musicians on the Order of Canada band album, Sweet Canadiana, which was nominated for this year’s Jazz Album of the Year (Group).

The 46th annual Juno Awards go April 2nd in Ottawa.