Buffy Sainte-Marie has won the $50,000 Polaris Prize for her latest project, Power In The Blood, and bested such artists as Drake and Caribou.
The Prize, which goes to the best Canadian album of the year based on “artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation,” was determined by a Grand Jury of 11 music media professionals drawn from the greater Polaris jury pool of roughly 200 writers, editors, broadcasters, DJs and personalities from across the country.
A gala event was held over the weekend and included performances by five of the ten nominees – Alvvays, Braids, Jennifer Castle, Sainte-Marie and Viet Cong all took to the Carlu stage in downtown Toronto. Fred Penner acted as host of the event. A number of past Polaris nominees were Gala presenters, including Owen Pallett for Buffy Sainte-Marie, Austra’s Katie Stelmanis for Braids, Shad for BADBADNOTGOOD & Ghostface Killah, One Hundred Dollars/Fiver’s Simone Schmidt for Jennifer Castle, Junior Boys’ Jeremy Greenspan for Caribou, Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew for Tobias Jesso Jr., Corb Lund for The New Pornographers and Operators/Handsome Furs/Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner for Viet Cong. Additionally, Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake introduced Alvvays and high-profile Toronto city councillor Norm Kelly presented Drake.
Photo: Polaris Prize/Dustin Rabin
