The Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra will look to make it back-to-back wins at the Western Canadian Music Awards this year.
The nominations for the 2026 awards were released on Wednesday, with Manitoba artists and industry professionals nominated for 35 awards in 22 different categories.
View the full list of nominees here.
Classical and jazz nominees
With this latest nomination, the WJO added another accomplishment to a huge year that saw them win Jazz Artist of the Year honours at the 2025 WCMA’s in Winnipeg last September and their first Juno Award for Jazz Album of the Year (Group) for their latest album, East Meets West: Connections. The group will look to defend their title against two British Columbia artists in bassist Jodi Proznick and harpist Elisa Thorn, as well as another bassist Aretha Tillotson and fellow Juno winners Caity Gyorgy and Mark Limacher from Alberta.
East Meets West: Connections by Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra
The Tacamis Trio, meanwhile, will compete in the Classical Artist or Ensemble of the Year category after releasing their debut album, J.S. Bach: Goldberg Variations for Double Reed Trio, back in January. The trio, which consists of oboist Caitlin Broms-Jacobs, bassoonist Allan Harrington and English hornist Tracy Wright, shared a live performance of their arrangements of Bach’s masterwork at the Winnipeg Baroque Festival in April.
Composer Luis Ramirez rounds out the classical nominees in the Classical Composer of the Year category. The Brandon University professor is nominated for his work Leaven which was performed by the all-women string quartet Atlys. Vincent Ho, the former composer-in-residence with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, is also nominated in the category along with Christopher Tyler Nickel, Emilie Cecilia LeBel and Jordan Nobles.
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Strong Manitoba showing across the board
Ramirez’s fellow Brandonites – Liam Duncan (a.k.a. Boy Golden) and Fontine – earned three WCMA nominations each. Other artists with multiple nominations include William Prince, Leith Ross, Begonia and Burnstick.
Manitoba also has multiple nominees in the same category, including Afrobeats Artist of the Year (S.C.U.D., Yvng Chriis), Francophone Artist of the Year (Jocelyne Baribeau, Burnstick), Indigenous Artist of the Year (Burnstick, Fontine), Pop Artist of the Year (Begonia, Leith Ross), Producer of the Year (Liam Duncan, Rayannah), Recording of the Year (Begonia, Boy Golden, William Prince), Rock Artist of the Year (Fontine, Living Hour), Roots Artist of the Year (Boy Golden, William Prince), Songwriter(s) of the Year (Fontine, Leith Ross, William Prince). On the industry side, the Good + Plenty Arts Collective Inc. and the West End Cultural Centre were nominated for the Community Excellence Award, while Birthday Cake Records and the Paquin Artists Agency were nominated in the Impact in Artist Development category.
The Western Canadian Music Awards will be handed out at the annual BreakOut West music conference, which will be held in Victoria from September 30 to October 4.