All submissions must adhere to the bylaws and submission requirements outlined by the Canadian Folk Music Awards committee. The following criteria may be used as a guideline by submitting artists. Questions regarding eligibility should be sent to info@folkawards.ca.

The terms Traditional Folk Music , Contemporary Folk Music and World Music are defined as follows:

Traditional Folk Music : This genre consists of music from instrumental and song traditions that are specific to a cultural or ethnic group. It is generally acknowledged that the repertoire and stylistic elements of ethnically based traditional music have been shaped through oral transmission, a process that can take place over a period of years. While a great deal of traditional repertoire consists of older songs and tunes, our definition does not exclude recent compositions which come to artists through the oral tradition, or which model themselves on specific traditional musical structures (e.g., recently composed jigs and reels). Submissions to any category described as traditional must show musical links (through repertoire and/or performance style) to a specific ethnically or culturally based tradition (e.g., Irish, French, Scottish, Bluegrass, Klezmer, Aboriginal, Blues, tradition-based World music, etc.).

Contemporary Folk Music : This genre consists of recently composed vocal or instrumental music influenced by folk music styles, repertoire and musical structures. It has often, but not always, been composed by the submitting artist.

World Music : The term world music in Canada suggests that artists within this genre come from “world cultures” separate and apart from the dominant ethnicities within Canada, such as the English, French and indigenous cultures.  World music is also recognized as a genre that fuses music from different ethnic or stylistic sources.  All submissions to the world music categories must demonstrate a “world perspective” and come from recent immigrant cultures (eg. Asian, African, Caribbean, South American, South Pacific, etc.) or from artists that create music from a variety of cultural sources and / or styles.

WORLD MUSIC CATEGORIES :  World artists are not limited to the World Artist categories. They may submit to all categories for which they are eligible (e.g., all traditional and contemporary categories, instrumentalist of the year, etc.).

SONGWRITER CATEGORIES : Artists may submit a recording to only one of the three song-writing categories. In the case of recordings with tracks written in multiple languages, the artist must select the category that best represents the recording.