Will Montreal ever host the Junos?
The 55th Juno Awards take place Sunday night in Hamilton, Ont. Last year, they were held in Vancouver. The year before that, Halifax.
For the first two decades after the Junos began in 1970, they were based in Toronto. In the 36 years since, they have visited St. John’s, Ottawa, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Calgary, Regina and London, Ont.
The awards, which celebrate the best in Canadian music, have returned to most of those places more than once. But guess which major Canadian city the Junos have never visited? Hint: you likely live there.
That’s right, the Juno Awards have never come to Montreal. Think about that for a second. It’s hard to come up with a better example of the cultural divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada, which Junos organizers have been working overtime to bridge in recent years.
Andrés Mendoza can’t wait to bring the Junos to Montreal. And he can’t explain why it hasn’t happened yet.
“It’s a question that’s been burning in my mind and our hearts forever,” said the vice-president of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), which puts on the Junos. “It’s funny, when I talk to people and tell them we’ve never been to Montreal, they say, ‘What?’ They thought they must have just missed it. I think it’s something we need to do.”
Mendoza came to Montreal on a one-way ticket from Vancouver in the early 1990s, at the age of 21, and spent the next decade toiling in the Quebec music scene. Now based in Toronto, he retains a fondness for Quebec and a determination to make it an integral part of the biggest night in Canadian music. But as he knows first-hand, that’s easier said than done.
Quebec has its own music industry, en français, where artists can bloom and boom, selling more albums in their home province than many artists from the rest of Canada do in the whole country. Likewise, anglophone acts from outside Quebec who are household names in Toronto and Vancouver often have trouble breaking through here.
“I don’t want to talk about the two solitudes — our country has been through a lot of that,” Mendoza said. “Personally, as somebody who has worked there in music and culture and learned French, I can say there’s a circle of people at the Junos and on the board who have been trying to get there.
“Especially in the last few years, we’ve come closer and closer. We still haven’t got a core group of people (in Quebec) saying, ‘We want you.’ Meanwhile, there are other cities coming through each year saying ‘What are your availabilities? What’s the procedure?’ We have to deal with those while we continue to try to solve the Quebec question.”
Host cities for the Junos are selected through a bidding process. Cities have to submit a proposal put together by members of the local music industry and secure a financial commitment — usually from municipal and federal governments and tourism boards — to help cover a portion of the associated production costs.
The Juno Awards created a direct economic impact of $17.5 million for Vancouver last year, according to Mendoza. Asked how much cities must contribute to attract the Junos, he could not provide a number but said it’s “a fraction of that, 15 to 25 per cent of that. It’s an investment that gets everything moving.
“We bring in a multifaceted show and event. A lot of people think it’s only two hours. No, no, no. We have 40 to 50 events and a music education organization, MusiCounts, that puts over $1 million in instruments in the hands of kids, which has local impacts, a teacher of the year program, scholarships for engineering and production students. There’s a lot of industry building. It’s not just a party.”
But a party it is. Some might call it a marathon music bender. Juno Week takes over the host city, filling local venues with multi-artist bills featuring acts from across the country in the days leading up to Saturday’s non-televised gala (where the bulk of awards are handed out) and Sunday’s televised ceremony. Fans and industry movers and shakers converge in a festival-esque frenzy that gives substance to the concept of a Canadian music scene.
“It’s the only place all the industry gets together: 2,500 to 3,000 industry people all having drinks, sitting down and talking,” Mendoza said. “That’s how things happen, thank god, and not in the digital space.”
We don’t want to push ourselves into Quebec. We want to be invited.
While Quebec hasn’t hosted the party, it’s always invited. Year after year, a contingent of artists, agents, label heads and other industry types from the province — including nominees in categories ranging from jazz to classical, world and electronic music — head to the Junos, where they are joined by peers from across the country.
Recent editions of the awards have seen more frequent performances by Quebec acts, including Coeur de pirate, Loud, Charlotte Cardin and Elisapie, and led to some surprising collaborations. Quebec singer-songwriter Roxane Bruneau was one of several singers invited to take part in the show-opening rendition of Michael Bublé’s 2005 hit Home last year, leading to her recently released French-language version of the song, with Bublé chiming in en français.
“It made me realize that anything is possible,” Bruneau told The Gazette.
That kind of serendipity gives Mendoza hope about holding the Junos in Montreal.
“We’re so close now, with Quebec,” he said. “I’ve talked to people in tourism, to (Quebec Culture Minister) Mathieu Lacombe. We’re not giving up. I’m hoping we can find that group of people to come together locally to be able to do that.
“We don’t want to push ourselves into Quebec. We want to be invited, and we haven’t been formally invited. I’m not going to quit until we get there.”
The Junos and Quebec are not obvious bedfellows. On the one hand, you have an anglophone Canadian awards show that celebrates the likes of Shania Twain, Nickelback, Justin Bieber and Drake; on the other, you have a self-contained francophone province with its own thriving music scene that fêtes stars like Marie-Mai, Les Cowboys Fringants, Les Trois Accords and Pierre Lapointe.
The common ground has traditionally trickled down to a few breakthrough Quebec acts who sing in English: Céline Dion, Arcade Fire … That’s changing.
“For several years now, there has been a desire to include Quebec,” said Philippe Archambault, executive director of Quebec label Audiogram and vice-president of music for Quebecor. “We see an openness from the Junos toward the Quebec industry and artists, both francophone and anglophone.”
In 2021, the Junos hired a Quebec publicist, Nathalie Corbeil, to handle media relations for the province. The organization also translated its entire website, application forms and membership information into French.
“There’s a real openness to the Quebec milieu,” Corbeil said, and interest in the Junos has increased among Quebec media as a result.
In 2023, Archambault was invited to sit on the Juno Awards’ board of directors.
“It’s a great honour to join this pan-Canadian organization,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to share the voice of the Quebec industry, which is very specific. For 40 years, we’ve had our own star system and artists.”
For several years now, there has been a desire to include Quebec.
Archambault also sits on the board of l’ADISQ, Quebec’s French-language music awards show. The two galas previously operated in silos, he says, “both working in parallel. For a long time, it was, ‘You do your gala, we do ours.’”
That dynamic has evolved.
“Now, there’s no choice but to open up to one another and see what’s happening,” Archambault said. “The industry is no longer what it was. There’s less media, we’re selling less records, everyone is living the same things. It’s important to expand our horizons and reach out.”
The question is no longer if the Junos will come to Montreal.
“It will happen,” Archambault said, “but you can’t force it. It has to happen naturally. It has to come from the right place. It has to be a group of people saying, ‘We want this.’ Would I like to be part of it? It would be a great pleasure. But it has to come from many corners. There has to be a local push.”
Eve Paré is no stranger to the idea of Montreal hosting the Junos. The ADISQ executive director, who is attending the Junos this weekend, says the two organizations have been in discussions “for many years concerning the gala coming to Montreal, which we’re not at all against — au contraire. It would be a nice occasion to offer visibility to artists from here.”
That said, ADISQ has put forth a few requests: that the award for francophone album of the year — to which Quebec’s top music acts are often relegated — be presented during Sunday’s televised ceremony and not Saturday’s off-air awards, as it is now; that francophone artists be among the TV performers; and that the broadcast feature a francophone or bilingual host/co-host, “all of which the Junos are very open to,” she said.
While ADISQ would support an initiative to bring the Junos to Quebec, the challenge is in securing public funding, Paré explained, “which can’t come at the detriment of our organization. The sums available in culture are rare, so we must be careful.”
The Gazette reached out to the City of Montreal, Tourism Montreal and Quebec’s ministry of culture; none were prepared to comment on the matter.
The Junos are willing to change things up to come to Quebec.
“It can’t be like any other Junos,” Mendoza said. “We’ve got to work with the community. We have to collaborate on a deeper level because there’s such a special, nuanced, distinct culture there. There’s an expertise, a cultural savvy and history that are different and important to respect.”
Gourmet Délice is a founding partner of Quebec music company Bonsound, home to artists including Elisapie, Les Louanges, Lisa LeBlanc and Annie-Claude Deschênes, who is nominated for underground dance single of the year and performs Saturday as part of Juno Week festivities.
Délice has attended the Junos often and believes it “would be good for Canada and Quebec” for the awards to happen here.
“There’s a desire in Quebec to make a bid, which in theory is good,” he said, “but it seems like everyone is waiting for something to happen. We need a spark, otherwise it will always remain a wish.”
Sabrina Cousineau is general manager at Bravo Musique. The label, formerly known as Dare To Care, was taken over by its flagship artist Coeur de pirate in 2021. Bravo’s new rising star Lou-Adriane Cassidy conquered Quebec last year, winning 12 ADISQ awards including for female artist, songwriter, song and concert of the year. Her album Journal d’un loup-garou is up for a Juno Award for best francophone album.
The Junos “are a nice spotlight,” Cousineau said, though it can be hard to quantify their impact for Quebec acts. Same goes for the appeal of bringing the Junos here.
“I’m not sure the Quebec government is willing to contribute financially to an event that is mainly broadcast in English on CBC,” she said. “At the same time, I can see how the Junos could shine in Montreal. With the upcoming change in government, maybe it’s a good time to have that discussion.”
Quebec rap artist Fredz has blown up in France, Belgium and Switzerland over the past three years. He too is nominated in the Juno category of best francophone album and will perform at Saturday’s non-televised ceremony.
“I’m very proud to be Québécois in a national gala,” he said. “The Quebec market is completely different than Canada. It feels international when I’m there. I feel both at home and far from home.”
The Canadian music scene “sometimes feels disunited, but in reality we’re all together,” Fredz said, adding that bringing the Junos to Montreal would make him “feel even more like one of the gang.”
His manager, Henry-François Gelot, says “it’s a shame” the Junos have never taken place here.
“Montreal isn’t an exception in Canada. It’s a core part of the identity of Canada. The Junos should reflect what the country looks like.”
Nick Farkas is tired of the question.
“I’ve been to the Junos all over Canada,” he said, “and every single bloody time I’ve gone to the Junos in my entire life, I’m asked the same question at least 20 times: ‘When are the Junos coming to Montreal?’ It’s going to be the best party ever. The entire industry is looking forward to it.”
As vice-president of concerts and events for Evenko, Quebec’s biggest concert promoter, Farkas knows all about the hurdles of bringing the Junos to Montreal. Evenko oversees festivals including Osheaga, Lasso, ÎleSoniq, the Montreal International Jazz Festival and Les Francos de Montréal, and runs venues including the Bell Centre, Place Bell, MTelus, the Beanfield Theatre and Studio TD, making the company an obvious partner for any Quebec Juno bid.
Farkas has been on the case for over a decade.
“After many years of banging my head against the wall and never getting anywhere, we are now in a position to do it,” he said. “Local industry is aligned. We see Quebec artists blowing up internationally. This would be a great window for them and for the venues all over town. Everyone wants to make this happen. The question is getting commitment from different levels of government and a big committee to put it all together.
“It’s tricky. There are a lot of different components.”
Farkas has discussed logistics with Mendoza and the Junos team. The televised awards would naturally take place at the Bell Centre, which would involve some serious schedule juggling. The Junos team requires full access to a venue for over a week beforehand.
“Just before the hockey playoffs, that’s a big chunk of days to give up,” Farkas said. “It’s tricky to make that work in the Bell Centre and make your team go on the road — that’s a constraint. We’ve been working with the Junos to get the days they need for pre-production down. From an arena perspective, we can do it.”
The next step would involve assembling a bid committee of local industry players to convince government and funding agencies to contribute to an awards show celebrating Canadian music. Farkas believes it’s about shifting the focus to putting a national spotlight on the Quebec scene.
“What’s super beneficial is putting our city, our artists in front of a Canadian audience,” he said. “There are a bunch of lead-up showcases and parties for artists to play prior to the main event, with lots of opportunities to perform in front of industry, which is huge. And then there’s the national telecast.
“There are so many pluses to this. It’s a chance for the rest of the Canadian industry to see shows in Montreal, with Montreal fans, and to experience our amazing venues. All these things contribute to putting Montreal on the national map. It would be great culturally for the province.”
Financially, it’s a no-brainer, according to Farkas. He has seen the positive impact of Evenko’s festivals on the city and province, and believes the Junos would have a similar effect.
“Other provinces have seen the benefit,” he said. “Ask Winnipeg, Halifax, St. John’s. The economic impact for a city to have the entire industry descend is massive. You have to make an investment to get the economic impact, to have full hotels and restaurants and tons of people in town.
“We’re a lot closer than we’ve ever been, but it depends on the next government that’s going to come in. Is there a willingness to have this vitrine for Quebec artists to be exposed nationally?”
The 55th Juno Awards will be broadcast Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
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