Here are your 2021 Canadian Folk Music Award Winners from Sunday night

The Canadian Folk Music Awards wrapped up their annual awards extravaganza Sunday night with another polished virtual event that gave us as much of the goodness of the live show as you can fit on a screen without any of the superfluous stuff from the live show that you don’t need on a screen.

I raved yesterday about the outstanding sound and video quality of the performances, the presence of acceptance speeches, and the decision to dispense with elements like guest presenters, which really only work in front of a live audience, and go with professionally voiced nominee announcements. There were minor technical niggles, as one would expect, given that everyone is still learning to do this. Using nominee music behind Jean Hewson and Benoit Bourque’s host chatter could be distracting at times, particularly when there were vocals. It would’ve been far easier on the ear to use unobtrusive production library tracks. But these are small quibbles in an otherwise fantastic show.

The CFMA really outdid itself by bringing us five full days of programming this year, and the quality was so exceptionally high that, for me at least, it captured at least some of the excitement of true live music.

Best of all, we got to watch some truly exceptional albums receive their just rewards. Here’s who took home prizes on Sunday.