Here are your 2021 Canadian Folk Music Award winners so far

The Canadian Folk Music Awards presented the first half of their 2021 awards Saturday night in a socially distanced virtual ceremony that was considerably more spectacular than last year’s already tasteful event.

The hastily-prepared virtual 2020 ceremony dispensed with the pretense of award presenters and “cut to the chase,” presenting last year’s awards via a half-hour string of professionally-voiced announcements and on-screen graphics with hosts Jean Hewson and Benoit Bourque appearing just often enough to add an essential sense of community to the affair. The whole thing was a paragon of good judgment in a difficult time.

This year, the CFMAs have kept all that was good about last year’s edition and built on it. They kept the announcer-and-graphic format for the award presentations, but they had time this year to record and include performances from the nominees, and the production quality of those performances was truly outstanding – as it was during the week for the nominee showcases.

What’s more, I’m not sure whether the CFMAs asked all their nominees to video tape an acceptance speech “just in case” or if they told the winners ahead of time and swore them to secrecy, but it sure was nice to see artists actually accepting their awards this year. I mean, that’s what this is all about, right?

Hats off to technical guru Graham Lindsey and the entire, all-volunteer, CFMA board for an outstanding week of entertainment. I can’t wait to watch again Sunday.

Here are the winners announced during Saturday’s show.