Whitehorse hosts Western Canadian Music Awards

The Western Canadian Music Awards take place Sunday night at the Yukon Arts Centre in Whitehorse, the first time the event has been held north of 60.

The event, held since 2003, honours the music recording industries of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and Yukon. Last year they were held in Kelowna, B.C.

Vancouver band 54-40 will be honoured as the winner of 2011 Hall Of Fame Award at this year’s gala.

Yellowknife singer-songwriter Leela Gilday was scheduled to perform four shows in the two-day festival called BreakOut West, which leads up to the awards, and she'll also present the award she won last year — Best Aboriginal Recording.

"It's a great opportunity particularly for Yukon musicians, but also N.W.T. Myself and Diga are going over to showcase," she said.

Whitehorse-based company Magnum Opus Management is nominated for Agency of the Year, the third nomination in the category for founder Debbie Peters.

She began her company 13 years ago when her sons, Graeme and Jesse, along with vocalist Caroline Drury were gaining national attention as the jazz group Peters-Drury Trio and needed someone to steer the course.

She found the group a producer and figured out a plan for recording and distribution. A publicist in Vancouver gave her the advice to branch out to more artists. That's when Peters said she had to figure out a balance between being a mom and starting up MOM.

"Stage moms or mom-agers or wife-agers or whatever, you see them in the business and sometimes they’re the most feared people out there because they’re very emotionally invested and yes, I was," she said. "But I think when I made that transition into making this a business and a company, we were pretty successful in separating manager and mother."

Her roster of artists now includes Gilday, Digawolf, Barney Bentall, Diyet, John Mann and Dust Poets.

The awards gala begins at 8 p.m. PT and will be streamed live online on the Breakout West website.