Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! won this year’s Polaris Music Prize, the annual award for Canadian Album Of The Year as chosen by a jury of music journalists, broadcasters, and bloggers. Hosted by previous Polaris nominees Kathleen Edwards and Shad, this year’s ceremony was held in Toronto earlier this evening and featured performances by all of this year’s shortlist nominees aside from GY!BE (who chose not to attend) and Tegan And Sara (who are on tour with fun., but were repped onstage by Choir! Choir! Choir! singing “Closer”). Last year’s winner Feist announced the winner, and Ian Ilavsky of Constellation Records said the band will use their $30,000 prize money on music education programs in Quebec prisons. Check out who was competing on this year’s shortlist, and watch the entire gala, below.

2013 Shortlist:

• Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
• Zaki Ibrahim – Every Opposite
• Metric – Synthetica
• METZ – METZ
• Purity Ring – Shrines
• Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light
• Tegan And Sara – Heartthrob
• A Tribe Called Red – Nation II Nation
• Whitehorse – The Fate Of The World Depends On This Kiss
• Young Galaxy – Ultramarine

For more details on how the Polaris Prize works, and whether it’s doing its job, check out this Chart Attack piece.