Peterborough Folk Festival

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2012! Born into a household of theatre actors and musicians, Joseph Fortin is well at home with a guitar on his lap and a pen in his hand and after fronting a rock group for several years, Jos. began to find his songbook cracking at the spine with songs that didn’t [...]

Emerging Artist Award winner 2011! From an early age growing up in the farming community of Ennismore, ON, Melissa Payne’s life was formed around music.  From her grandparents’ fiddle-loving east coast roots, through her early music lessons from the internationally acclaimed Leahy family, it was in her genetic code to love music. After teaching herself to [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2010 Bio: Returning to Canada from a long sojourn in the state of Utah, Kate Le Deuce is bringing something unique to the alternative country scene. Channeling 1970s country music, when men lived hard, drank hard, and drove hard, she sing songs for truck drivers, drunks and sad bastards. On subjects [...]

Serena Ryder was the first recipient of the Emerging Artist Award in 2001. Serena Ryder has already left an indelible impression in Canada, where her album If Your Memory Serves You Well has been certified Gold and contributed to her winning the 2008 Juno Award for Best New Artist. For American listeners, this sets the [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2002 James McKenty is the guitarist/vocalist of The Spades. Looking at today and working back, it’s easy to see how The Spades have built such a strong fan base; good old fashioned hard work. They’ve just completed a new album, “Subatomic” set to be released on March 23, 2010 through the [...]

Emerging Artist Award winner 2003 “The Staveley Project; a fierce, heartfelt and technically superb performance. Staveley’s incomparably expressive vocal work is backed by one of the tightest and passionate rhythm sections I have heard. Her songwriting is raw like road rash and hits you just as hard. Don’t underestimate this player, nor what she has [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2004 “To understand the talent that is Beau Dixon is to see him  as well as hear him.  As a singer, he is bigger-than-life, aided by a tall frame and a soul-searing voice that reaches the far side of the room and threatens to blow out the doors on exiting.  As an actor, he [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2005 The Avenues (featuring Benj Rowland)  are a high energy, foot stompin’ three piece band, from Peterborough Ontario. Drums, bass pedals, banjo, guitar and vocal harmonies. They formed in the winter of 2009 and have already started their plans to take over the world. They can sound like a balls to [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2006 Drea Nasager from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada is a 29-year-old singer songwriter with national and international performance experience, eight solo albums and a new EP with Drea and The Four Letter Words that reinvents her Folk You sound, songs and performance. Some of Drea’s solo performances include: the Deerlycke and Paulusfeesten [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2007 (with David Simard) Kelly McMichael has an immense love for pianos, cats and dancing. She dibble-dabbles here and there, trying out jazz, pop, rock, folk and even techno, on occasion. Her quirky small-town cushions of Peterborough and Guelph have left her with a unique but still developing musical base to [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2007 (with Kelly McMichael) Born at the foot of the mountains on the North Western coast of Canada, David Simard has taken a young but rich lifetime and woven a remarkable canvas of sweeping, avant-garde folk. Cut from the same cloth as Tom Waits and Nina Simone, rooted in cabaret and [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2008 Sean Conway is a young Peterborough-based musician who claims Final Fantasy, Evening Hymns and Tom Waits as some of his biggest influences. Sean utilizes a BOSS RC-2 Loop Station to capture and create his unique sonic orchestra. His music carries itself with grace and rage along intricate loops and beats hammered out [...]

Emerging Artist Award Winner 2009 Missy Knott is a 20-year-old aspiring artist breaking out of Peterborough, Ontario’s extraordinary music scene. Widely known for her soulful, angelic voice and her music genre diversity, Missy is on her way to the top. Alan Greyeyes, co-chair of Manito Ahbee Festival Inc says “Missy’s dope! She’s got the talent [...]