Hey Rosetta! at Pianos (03/04/09)

Photo: Jon Klemm (more)

…and then there were ten.

2011 Polaris Prize Short List
Arcade Fire – The Suburbs
Austra – Feel It Break
Braids – Native Speaker
Destroyer – Kaputt
Galaxie – Tigre et Diesel
Hey Rosetta! – Seeds
Ron Sexsmith – Long Player Late Bloomer
Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges
Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin’ On
The Weeknd – House Of Balloons

The winner gets $30,000 this year, up from $20,000 in the previous 5 years of the Prize. Short List artists minus the winner will also receive $2,000 courtesy of Slaight Music.

The Polaris Music Prize gala will be held Monday, September 19 and will be hosted by Grant Lawrence and Damien Abraham of Fu**ed Up and MuchMusic’s The Wedge. It will be exclusively broadcast live to North America on SiriusXM Satellite Radio 152 and to the world on CBC Radio 3. The event will take place at CTV’s Concert Hall studios at Toronto’s Masonic Temple and will feature live performances by this year’s Short List nominees. It will be webcast live on MuchMusic.com and broadcast on MuchMusic Saturday September 24 at 9 p.m. and midnight EST. The gala will also air on MusiquePlus at a date and time to be announced.

Not surprisingly, Arcade Fire made the 2011 Polaris Prize Short List, and if past award ceremonies are any indication, they just might be the ones to beat this year. Having said that, the Polaris Jury is an unpredictable beast, with more obscure acts (Karkwa) often triumphing over their more successful indie brethren (Broken Social Scene, Tegan and Sara). So, if you’ll allow me to contradict myself in the same paragraph, with all of their past commercial successes, Arcade Fire just might be too high profile to be considered contenders for this award anymore.