The Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award recognizes outstanding artistic achievement by folk musicians. The award is presented annually to an artist who has performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival, who has demonstrated musical excellence, and who has contributed at an exceptional level to the field of folk music and to the community as a whole. A work of art by a Manitoba artist is presented to the recipient, along with a cash award of $10,000. The award is presented annually at the Winter Wassail.

In 2009, Billy Bragg received the Artistic Achievement Award

Billy Bragg

• Billy Bragg interview at the Folk Exchange, November, 27, 2009 [link to photos and audio]

The Winter Wassail was held Nov. 26, 2009. This special fundraising event is in support of the Winnipeg Folk Festival’s Education and Outreach Programs. An income tax receipt is issued for the gift portion of the ticket. The evening included a performance by Billy Bragg, a medieval feast, a bountiful silent auction and more live entertainment. The Winter Wassail is an opportunity to gather your friends for a festival celebration to welcome winter. For more information, call 204-231-0096. Now an annual tradition for many attendees, this evening of music and celebration is both an enjoyable addition to the community’s holiday festivities, as well as a successful fundraiser for the festival.

Past Recipients

• 2008: Richard Thompson
• 2007: Buffy Sainte-Marie
• 2006: Odetta
• 2005: Bruce Cockburn
• 2004: Loreena McKennitt

Richard Thompson: Recipient of the 2008 Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award

For four decades, Richard Thompson has consistently set songwriting and performance standards to which other aspire. His astounding body of work includes over 40 albums of lyrical wit anchored by such a singular acoustic and electric guitar delivery that Newsweek recently announced, ‘like all genuine art, it satisfies completely.’ Internationally renowned as both a songwriter and guitarist, Richard Thompson has had a long and storied career, as a founding member of Fairport Convention, in a duo with then-wife Linda Thompson, and as a solo performer. His seminal albums include Rumor and Sigh, Shoot Out the Lights (with Linda Thompson), and Liege and Lief (with Fairport Convention), which was named ‘The Most Influential Folk Album of All Time’ at the 2006 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards. His songs have been recorded by countless recording artists including Bonnie Raitt, Nanci Griffith, June Tabor, Emmylou Harris, David Byrne, Los Lobos, The Pointer Sisters, REM and Elvis Costello. Thompson was named by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the Top 20 Guitarists of all-time and was the recent recipient of both an Ivor Novello Award for Songwriting and the 2006 BBC Lifetime Achievement Award. “It’s an honour to have this job and, to me, the greatest thing is to be up on stage and to feel that connection with an audience,” he diffidently observes. “It actually doesn’t matter how big that audience is, as long as you get the feeling that there’s that musical communication there, that mystical thing that happens in a room full of people. Music is played, things change subtly. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s just a drive, you’re driven to do it,” Thompson says of his songwriting. “If you’re not driven, maybe you shouldn’t bother. If you haven’t written a song for a couple of weeks, you get itchy, you start twitching. You have to get it out there, whatever it is. I’ve been twitching for 40 years, which is great. It’s wonderful to still be enthusiastic about what is basically one’s employment, and to have been that way all the way through. I still guiltily look over my shoulder sometimes, thinking,’This is too much fun.’” Richard Thompson has performed numerous times at the Winnipeg Folk Festival: in 1983, 1992, 1998 and 2006 (pictured left). In light of his longstanding relationship with the Festival, the Winnipeg Folk Festival is thrilled that Richard Thompson is the first recipient outside of North America to receive this award. In addition to a cash prize, Thompson also received a fine guitar built by luthier Fred Casey.

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Recipient of the 2007 Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award

In a remarkable career spanning more than four decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie has made an indelible mark on North American and world culture as a performer, recording artist, songwriter, activist, scholar, lecturer, educator, actor, filmmaker, and multimedia visual artist. Her most well-known songs include “Starwalker,” “Up Where We Belong,” “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” “Until It’s Time for You to Go,” “Codine,” “He’s an Indian Cowboy in the Rodeo,” and “Universal Soldier,” which became a key anthem of the anti-Vietnam peace movement. Her songs have been recorded by countless artists including Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Tracy Chapman and the Indigo Girls.

Her diverse awards and honours include a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, the Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement by the First Americans in the Arts (US), a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame, an Academy Award for the song “Up Where We Belong” (which was recorded by Jennifer Warnes and Joe Cocker for An Officer and a Gentleman), a Gemini Award for the TV special Buffy Sainte-Marie: Up Where We Belong, and French International Artist of the Year (1993). She was named Billboard’s Best New Artist for her first album, has been inducted into the Juno Hall of Fame, is an Officer of the Order of Canada, and was chosen by the United Nations to proclaim the International Year of Indigenous Peoples. Buffy Sainte-Marie was born on a Cree reservation in the Qu’Appelle Valley in Saskatchewan, was adopted and raised in Maine and Massachusetts. In 1962 she graduated from college already immersed in her musical career. By the age of 24 she was already racking up awards and acclaim, despite having to battle misperceptions about being a First Nations artist. During Lyndon Johnson’s presidency (in the 1960s), she was blacklisted because of her outspoken activism, but continued to perform at grassroots events. She quit recording music in 1976 until her “comeback” album, Coincidence and Likely Stories, in 1993. In the intervening years she raised her son, excelled as a songwriter and composer, and concentrated on her work in experimental music and in the visual arts. Many people remember her and her son Dakota Starblanket Wolfchild’s stint on Sesame Street during this period.

Buffy Sainte-Marie at the 2003 Winnipeg Folk Festival. Photo Robert Tinker.

Buffy Sainte-Marie’s exemplary devotion to education is clear. She uses her music and art to teach, but that’s not all: she holds degrees in Oriental philosophy, teaching, and Fine Art (a Ph.D. in the latter), and lectures regularly on diverse artistic practices and social and political ideas, including First Nations studies. She has taught at York University, the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, Washington’s Evergreen State College, and the Institute for American Indian Arts in New Mexico. Through her “Cradleboard Teaching Project,” to which she has devoted much of her time in the past ten years, she creates multimedia teaching materials which provide a First Nations perspective on school curriculums. As a visual artist, Buffy Sainte-Marie was a pioneer of using new digital technologies to create art using Photoshop painting and scanned objects and textures. Her works have been exhibited and featured in magazines across North America. Buffy Sainte-Marie’s career has taken her all over North America from the biggest concert halls to the smallest reservations, and to Europe, Australia, Hong Kong and Japan. She performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1977 and in 2003. She currently limits her appearances in order to concentrate on her educational program “The Cradleboard Project.” It is special honour to have her in Winnipeg on December 6 to accept the Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award. For more information about Buffy Sainte-Marie, including audio and images of her artwork, visit, creativenative.com. Click here to view photos of Buffy Sainte-Marie at the 2003 FestivalIn addition to a cash prize, Buffy Sainte-Marie recieved a custom-made jacket — in a design called the “Spirit Loon” — by Lorna Hiebert’s Lorna Design.

Buffy Sainte-Marie, recipient of the 2007 Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award