The SOCAN Songwriting Prize honours the best music created in the last year by emerging Canadian songwriters.

How it works: Two independent panels of Canadian music industry experts, influencers and journalists – completely unaffiliated with SOCAN – nominate songs that they believe best represent the most creative and artistic work by emerging songwriters in Canada over the past year.

One panel nominates songs in English and the other nominates songs in French, recognizing all genres of music. Songwriters or their representatives do not submit songs for consideration.

Each panelist listens to all of the submitted songs and individually and anonymously votes for their top seven using a point-based ranking system. The 10 songs that receive the most points become the 10 finalists in each of the English and French categories. The short lists are then announced and public voting for the winners takes place over a two-week period.