Mathew Klie-Cribb, Centretown News

Folk singer Valdemar Horsdal, who is from Ottawa, finishes off the night at the Canadian Folk Music Awards on Nov. 21.

“The music happening under the folk music umbrella is a very wide definition,” said Grit Laskin, who organizes the awards and founded them five years ago.

“It’s everything from contemporary singer-songwriters pushing the edge to traditional singers and fiddlers and everything in-between,” he said.

The award ceremony was held at the Dominion Chalmers Church, at the corner of Cooper and O’Connor streets.

There were several Ottawa musicians in attendance, including Lynne Hanson, who was nominated for emerging artist of the year award, and Lee Hayes, a mezzo-soprano in Ottawa’s voice and percussion quartet.

Hanson lost to The Good Lovelies, from Toronto.

The goal of the awards ceremony is to get the mainstream to notice how huge and complex the Canadian folk scene is, said Laskin.

“The community is huge,” he said. “It makes the so-called folk boom of the '60s look like a blip.”

There were only three folk festivals in North America in the 1960s, but now there are 26 in Ontario, 15 in British Columbia and five in Nova Scotia, said Laskin.

“But it’s all below the radar,” he said. “The mainstream doesn’t care that much.”

A national organization like the Canadian Folk Music Awards can bring to light great bands from the east or west coasts that you may not have heard of, said Brenley MacEachern of Madison Violet, which won the vocal group of the year award.

It’s nice to have an awards ceremony that recognizes how tight-knit the folk community is, said Lisa MacIsaac, co-vocalist in Madison Violet.

“I don’t feel like there’s separation between the musicians and the fans in the folk scene, which is why it’s such a nice community,” she said.