Miracle Fortress, Patrick Watson, Plaskett, VanGaalen And Doiron To Play Polaris Gala

Five of the 10 finalists for this year's Polaris Music Prize will perform at an invitation-only event on Sept. 24 at Toronto's Phoenix Concert Theatre, where the winner will walk away with $20,000.

Montreal-based Secret City Records acts Miracle Fortress and Patrick Watson, Halifax's Joel Plaskett Emergency and Calgary's Chad VanGaalen will play, while nominee Julie Doiron will reunite with members of Eric's Trip for her performance. The other finalists are Arcade Fire, The Besnard Lakes, The Dears, Feist and Junior Boys.

CBC Radio 3 host and Smugglers frontman Grant Lawrence, a member of the grand jury that chose Final Fantasy's He Poos Clouds as the inaugural Polaris winner last year, will host the event.

"After the way I behaved in the jury room last year, imagine my surprise when I was asked to host the whole deal," says Lawrence. "Therefore, I consider it a shock and honour to master the ceremonies this year."

Those not invited to the gala can listen to it live on Sirius Satellite Radio's channel 94.An album featuring nine of the Polaris finalists (Arcade Fire weren't included because of their "no compilation" policy) was released by Warner Music Canada on Tuesday.

More than 170 Canadian music journalists, broadcasters and bloggers were asked to choose their five favourite homegrown albums released between June 1, 2006 and May 31, 2007. Judges were asked to make their selections based solely on artistic merit without regard to genre, sales history or label affiliation. An initial long list was whittled down to 10 based on a points system.

From that large group, 11 people have been chosen to pick the winner on the evening of the 24th while the show is happening. The decision-makers are:

Eye Weekly's Stuart Berman (Toronto);
CBC Radio 2's Laurie Brown (Toronto);
Here Magazine's Ben Conoley (Fredericton);
The National Post's Mike Doherty (Toronto);
CBC Radio 1's Stephanie Domet (Halifax);
The Gazette's T'Cha Dunlevy (Montreal);
The Globe And Mail's Robert Everett-Green;
Exclaim!'s Cam Lindsay (Toronto);
VOIR's Stephane Martel (Montreal);
Edmonton Journal's Sandra Sperounes;
and Xpress' John Sekerka (Ottawa).