Canadian singer-songwriter Laila Biali has been nominated for a Grammy Award! In a doozy of a category, too: instead of the Jazz category that Biali submitted her album to, she was nominated in the Traditional Pop Vocal Album category. This means she’s up against artists such as Barbra Streisand, Elton John and Brandi Carlile, and Lady Gaga.
“I wasn’t even sure if we should bother watching the [nominations] broadcast,” says Biali, of herself and her percussionist/producer husband, Ben Wittman.
“Having been moved from Jazz to Traditional Pop with this huge list of heavyweights, I thought there was no way I was going to get nominated,” she says.
But she had friends up for nominations and, as a jazz radio host, wanted to watch the jazz announcements.
So she and Witmann sat down to watch. After a bit, her phone started blowing up with texts. It turned out she was watching the wrong stream and had missed the initial announcement of the Traditional Pop category. And her album, Wintersongs, had been nominated.
“I was full-body crying and shaking,” says Biali. At the same time, she and Wittman wanted to confirm the news officially, before they could bring themselves to believe it.
“The next 15 minutes were the most exciting and the most torturous of my life,” she says.
Finally, the list was published on the Grammy Award website. It was real. It took a while to process. “We never imagined it could be possible,” she says.
In February, the JUNO Award-winning musician will head to Los Angeles for the award ceremony.
It’s massively exciting for all kinds of reasons, says Biali. While Wintersongs is not strictly a jazz album, “I feel it is still representative of the jazz community. I feel like the nomination itself is a collective win in that respect.”
It also feels special to be nominated for such a big American award.
“Even though I am a dual citizen I feel I am representing Canada in this moment as the sole Canadian in this category,” Biali says.
She wrote Wintersongs at the Banff Centre in 2021. Heading to a two-week residency without an agenda, she’d found herself utterly inspired by the beauty of Canadian winter.
Biali was given a beautiful cabin/studio with a rosewood Steinway grand piano in front of floor-to-ceiling windows.
“That combination of being nestled and ensconced in this amazing, cozy, beautiful space but also looking out on this great expanse of winter scenery where the possibilities just feel endless, led me to begin writing Wintersongs,” she says.
Now, with the buzz of the Grammy nod going strong, Biali is about to embark on another musical Canadian adventure. Called Dreamland, it’s a new reimagining of the Canadian songbook.
It’s in the infant stages but she is hoping to include covers of the best Canadian songwriters of the day, including Jeremy Dutcher, Aysanabee, William Prince, and Celeigh Cardinal.
“In light of recent politics and also Truth and Reconciliation, I’ve been thinking more and more deeply about how to represent our beautiful country well,” she says.
She plans to start in earnest at her upcoming Banff Centre residency, in mid-December.
That residency is in December, then in February, Biali will be in Los Angeles, rubbing shoulders with the biggest musical celebrities of our day at the Grammys.
It will be an incredible moment, being in that room, says Biali. “But what I’m most excited about is having my husband and co-producer, and our 15-year-old son, a budding young producer himself, at my side for as many Grammy moments as possible.”
“It would be a dream to meet some of my heroes, including my co-nominees,” she adds. “But at the end of the day the goals of my heart are to celebrate with my loved ones and peers and to represent Canada as well as I can while in the global spotlight.”
Congratulations on this nomination, Laila! All of us at CKUA will be cheering for you when The Grammys are handed out on February 1, 2026.
“Rocky Mountain Lullaby” from Wintersongs:
