Crys Matthews, Susan Werner Among Winners of 2025 International Folk Music Awards

Last night, Folk Alliance International presented the International Folk Music Awards on the first evening of their 37th annual conference, held this year in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. The awards show included a variety of recognitions, inductions, and trophies handed out: the Spirit of Folk Awards, Lifetime Achievement Awards, People’s Voice Award, and the Clearwater Award as well as Folk Radio Hall of Fame inductions, The Rising Tide Awards, and the nail-biting and exciting Best of 2024 categories. (Find a full list of winners and recipients below.)

Two-time JUNO Award-winner Rose Cousins and the The Brother Brothers opened the IFMAs with a rendition of Robert Earl Keen’s “Feeling Good Again.” The night’s house band included Cousins, The Brother Brothers (Adam and David Moss), and Dean Drouillard. Cousins returned to the stage with Mary Bragg, together performing the Indigo Girls’ “Galileo,” paying tribute to the iconic lesbian folk duo to mark their Lifetime Achievement Award honor. Black-indigenous-Canadian country singer-songwriter Julian Taylor paid tribute to another Lifetime Achievement recipient, the seminal guitar picker and singer Lesley Riddle, with “Red River Blues.” Le Vent Du Nord closed the show with a live performance nodding to Songlines, an important music magazine that was also recognized with a Lifetime Achievement Award. (Stream the full awards show via FAI’s YouTube channel below.)

In the Best of 2024 categories, Susan Werner walked away with the award for Album of the Year for Halfway to Houston. Song of the Year was awarded to “$20 Bill (for George Floyd),” written by Tom Prasada-Rao and performed by Dan Navarro. Crys Matthews won the Artist of the Year Award, racking up her second IFMA.

Tom Power, host of CBC’s Q and a contributor to the BGS Podcast Network, was awarded a Spirit of Folk Award alongside fellow recipients Quebec’s Innu Nikamu festival, longtime Folk Alliance Region Midwest community builder Annie Capps, and singer, songwriter, and My Black Country author Alice Randall.

Randall shared during her acceptance speech, “In My Black Country, I tell the story of climbing out of the hell of being raped by holding on to the sound of John Prine singing ‘Angel from Montgomery.’ I write about discovering the Joan Baez Ballad Book, a double-album set of English, Irish and Scottish folk songs that became my stepping stones to joy after trauma. I owe my sanity to folk music. … On the new album, country-charting songs were stripped of pop productions that erased Black characters and muted political intent. My songs were restored to their folk roots. My book My Black Country is about the Black folk, including Black folk musicians, who made country, country…”

Tom Power poses with his Spirit of Folk Award backstage at the IFMAs. Photo by Indie Montreal.

Elsewhere in the evening’s stacked run of show, Gina Chavez was awarded the People’s Voice Award and DJs and radio personalities Archie Fisher, MarySue Twohy, Taylor Caffery, Matthew Finch, and Chuck Wentworth were inducted into the Folk Radio Hall of Fame.

The IFMAs once again spotlit the important community-building, tradition-preserving, and progress-advancing creativity of the folk music scene the world over, from artists, songwriters, and storytellers to the industry insiders and professionals who make all of this possible. See the full list of winners (in bold), nominees, and recipients below.

Artist of the Year

Flamy Grant
Sarah Jarosz
Kaïa Kater
Nick Lowe
Crys Matthews
Allison Russell

Album of the Year

Trail Of Flowers by Sierra Ferrell
The Space Between by The Heart Collectors
Strange Medicine by Kaïa Kater
All My Friends by Aoife O’Donovan
Ordinary Elephant by Ordinary Elephant
Halfway to Houston by Susan Werner

Song of the Year

“Tenzin Sings with Nightingales,” written by Tenzin Choegyal, performed by Tenzin Choegyal and Michael Askill
“Woman Who Pays,” written and performed by Connie Kaldor
“How I Long for Peace,” written by Abena Koomson-Davis, Peggy Seeger, and Rhiannon Giddens, performed by Rhiannon Giddens
“Ukrainian Now,” written and performed by Tom Paxton
“$20 Bill (for George Floyd),” written by Tom Prasada-Rao, performed by Dan Navarro

Lifetime Achievement Awards

Indigo Girls
Lesley Riddle
Songlines magazine

Julian Taylor performs a tribute to Lesley Riddle at the 2025 IFMAs. Photo by Indie Montreal.

The Clearwater Award

River Roads Festival, presented by Dar Williams, Laudable Productions, the Connecticut River Conservancy

The Spirit of Folk Awards

Tom Power
Alice Randall
Annie Capps
Innu Nikamu festival

The People’s Voice Award

Gina Chavez

The Rising Tide Award

OKAN

Folk Radio Hall of Fame Inductees

Archie Fisher
MarySue Twohy
Taylor Caffery
Matthew Finch (posthumous)
Chuck Wentworth (posthumous)

All photos courtesy of Folk Alliance International, shot by Indie Montreal. Lead image: Crys Matthews, L; Alice Randall, R.