Wednesday night, the 2015 Polaris Music Prize campaign starts off with the first in a nationwide series of Polaris Panels. Last week, Founder and Executive Director of the Polaris Music Prize, Steve Jordan, announced plans for a series of Polaris Panels in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax.
Replacing the former Salons, Polaris Panels will feature general information about the Polaris judging process with local jurists offering insight into their own personal criteria for selecting their ballots.
“In the past, Salons had a general target audience of music obsessives, musicians, and aspiring music journalists. Increasingly we were aware that our audience for these discussions were chiefly artists wanting to know more about the Prize, so we’re recalibrating these sessions slightly to speak directly to them,” explained Jordan of the changes. “That said, anyone with an interest in knowing more about Polaris are more than welcome to join us.”
This year’s Polaris Music Prize 40 title, Long List will be announced at the Carleton, in Halifax on June 16, followed by the Short List unveiled on July 16 at The Carlu in Toronto. The Polaris Music Prize Gala will return to The Carlu for its third year, on Monday, September 21. If you can’t be there in person, Aux.tv will once again stream the gala live.
The 2015 Polaris Panels begin in Vancouver on
Wednesday, June 3rd at 6pm.
Co-produced by Music BC the Panel takes place at Guilt & Co in Gastown, 1 Alexander Street with
Steven Jordan moderating and a panel featuring; freelance music writer/photographer Christine McAvoy, Gregory Adams from Georgia Straight, Trevor Risk from ION Magazine and Andrea Warner from CBC Music & Exclaim!
Panels follow throughout the year in;
Winnipeg, MB – June 4
Toronto, ON – June 19
Ottawa, ON – September 5
Montreal, QC – during Pop Montreal September 16-20
Halifax, NS – during Halifax Pop Explosion October 20 – 24
For more information on the Polaris Music Prize visit polarismusicprize.ca