Diversity key to Calgary's music awards
Second-year event moves to bigger digs at The Palace Theatre for show, after-party
Shannon Ambrose thought she and the YYC Music Awards team had all bases covered when they announced the performers of last year’s inaugural event.
A little country here, some indie rock there plus a lashing of metal and a sprinkle of jazz to round out the evening.
So, she was shocked when it was pointed that none of the six acts slated to play were women.
“It’s kind of funny considering that three-quarters of the planning committee at that time were women,” says Ambrose.
“It didn’t even dawn on us. We were more concentrated on looking at a more diverse range of genres. It certainly wasn’t a deliberate slight on our part.”
Organizers rectified that oversight for this year’s YYC Music Awards, which take place Sunday.
Pop-rock singer Amy Hef and indie folk group Locomotive Ghost are among the seven acts who will take the stage at The Palace Theatre during the awards ceremony as well as the after-party.
Hef will perform her song, What Comes Next, written about ‘a cousin who was killed in a confrontation with the Calgary Police.’ It’s the first time the musician — who splits her time between Calgary and Los Angeles — will play the song live with a full band.
“It’s nice to see Calgary recognizing local artists,” says Hef, who is nominated for two awards.
“It’s always nice to be recognized for what I do. And it’ll be great to be in the same room with people who are like-minded and be able meet other artists and musicians.”
Ambrose says the second annual YYC Music Awards will be bigger and better than last year’s event that was held at the newly opened National Music Centre.
“As beautiful as The National Music Centre is and how much of a perfect fit it was for us the first year, we knew that it wasn’t big enough this year,” Ambrose explains.
“We knew we needed a bigger space in a venue that was more accustomed to live performances. It will be an entirely different flow this year because it won’t be theatre seating. It might make for a bit more of a relaxed event as well.”
Awards will be handed out in 19 categories. Roots/country singer J.J. Shiplett leads the nominations with six, including Country Recording of the Year, Male Artist of the Year and Music Video of the Year.
Other multiple nominees include Hef, Locomotive Ghost, critically acclaimed art-pop singer FOONYAP and hip hop artist SEVEN.
Between February and May, organizers received more than 100 submissions, which were then passed on to the Calgary Music Selecting Committee, made up of close to 50 industry professionals from across Canada.
An adjudicating committee whittled down the submissions to five nominees in each category and the same panel of judges chose the winners, according to Ambrose.
While some may question why the judging pool includes people not involved in or overly familiar with Calgary’s music scene, Ambrose says it helps ensure favouritism doesn’t spoil the outcome.
“Calgary is a small community. That said, if you want to be a part of the music selection committee you can make a submission on our website. Then the committee will go through the submission to make sure there isn’t a conflict of interest.”
Ambrose came up with the idea for the YYC Music Awards over drinks with Darren Gilbert and this year’s program director Leanne Harrison at the Blind Beggar Pub two years ago.
They were discussing why Edmonton was already a few years into a successful local music awards event but Calgary had yet to get one off the ground.
“We know it had been attempted four years ago here, but it just kind of fell apart,” says Ambrose.
“You could say Edmonton was the catalyst, but we’re also familiar with the Western Canadian Music Awards and we’ve been to the Junos a handful of times, so we kind of brought that experience to putting together these awards as well.
“We wanted to do this to bring the entire community together as one. We’re all doing the same thing so why not support each other in it?”