The 2016 New Zealand Music Awards was the 51st holding of the annual ceremony featuring awards for musical recording artists based in or originating from

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It took place in November 2016 at

Vector Arena Spark Arena (also known as Auckland City Arena, and formerly as Vector Arena) is a multipurpose arena in Auckland, New Zealand. The venue is located at Quay Park, Parnell, very close to Britomart Transport Centre and The Strand Station. The ar ...

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The most populous urban area in the country and the fifth largest city in Oceania, Auckland has an urban population of about ...

and was hosted by comedy duo

Jono Pryor Jonathan Richard "Jono" Pryor is a New Zealand radio and television personality best known as the cohost of ''Jono and Ben''. Pryor worked for The Rock radio station for over 15 years, before moving to The Edge in 2017 to cohost ''The Edge Afte ...

and

Ben Boyce Ben Boyce is a New Zealand television and radio personality and comedian best known as the host of TV shows '' Pulp Sport'', '' WANNA-BEn'' and ''Jono and Ben'' on TV3. Biography Boyce is a graduate of the New Zealand Broadcasting School at ...

. The awards show was broadcast live on TV3 and

The Edge TV ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

. Nominations for the 2016 New Zealand Music Awards opened on 20 June 2016, and cover artists who have had commercial recordings released between 1 July 2015 and 31 July 2016. Nominations closed on 3 August 2016. The nominees were announced on 13 October, along with the 2016 Legacy Award recipient and the Critics' Choice Prize shortlist.

Early awards

While most of the awards were presented at the main awards ceremony held in November, five genre awards are presented earlier in the year at ceremonies of their field. *The first was awarded in February, with the Tui for Best Folk Album presented at the Auckland Folk Festival in Kumeu to Queenstown singer-songwriter Holly Arrowsmith for her debut album ''For the Weary Traveller''. *The Tui for Best Jazz Album was presented in March at the National Jazz Festival in Tauranga to Phil Broadhurst Quintet for their album ''Panacea''. *The Best Country Music Album Tui was presented in June at the New Zealand Country Music Awards in Gore to

The Warratahs The Warratahs are a band from Wellington, New Zealand. Band members Early line-ups * Barry Saunders (vocals/guitar) * Wayne Mason (keyboards/vocals) * Nik Brown (fiddle) * John Donahue (bass) * Marty Jorgensen (drums) * Clinton Brown ( ...

for their album ''Runaway Days''. *The Tui for Best Pacific Music Album was presented in June at the Vodafone Pacific Music Awards to the performance group

Te Vaka Te Vaka (English: ''The Canoe'') is an Oceanic music group that performs original contemporary Pacific music or "South Pacific Fusion". The group was founded in 1995 by singer and songwriter Opetaia Foa'i in New Zealand. They have toured the wo ...

for their album ''Amataga''. *The Tui for the Best Children's Music Album was presented in August on ''

What Now ''What Now'' is a New Zealand children's television programme that premiered on Saturday 9 May 1981. It is currently filmed before a live audience at a different school in New Zealand, which is selected every week. The show airs every Sunday at ...

'' to Itty Bitty Beats for their album ''Lay Your Head Down''. In addition, the artisan awards (previously known as the technical awards) were presented on 20 October at a cocktail event at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland. The Critics' Choice prize event and winner announcement will be held on 2 November at the Tuning Fork bar in Auckland.

Nominees and winners

New for 2016, the technical awards have been renamed the artisan awards, and the Best Electronica Album award is now named Best Electronic Album.

Broods Broods is a New Zealand musical duo from Nelson, composed of Georgia Josiena Nott on lead vocals, with older brother and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Allan Joseph Nott on production and backing vocals. They released the single "Bridges", which w ...

dominated the awards, picking up Album of the Year, Single of the Year, Best Group, Best Pop Album and the People's Choice Award. R&B singer

Aaradhna Aaradhna Jayantilal Patel (born 20 December 1983), better known by her stage name Aaradhna, is a New Zealand singer, songwriter, musical recording artist. She made her musical debut in 2004 featuring on the single "Getting Stronger" with the g ...

won Best Urban/Hip Hop Album, but refused to accept the award as she felt a category that included both R&B and rap acts was putting the two genres together for racial reasons. She then informally presented the award to rap group SWIDT. Recorded Music NZ still lists Aaradhna as the winner of the category. Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface. ;Key : – Artisan award

References

External links

Official New Zealand Music Awards website
{{New Zealand Music Awards New Zealand Music Awards, 2016 Music Awards, 2016 Aotearoa Music Awards November 2016 events in New Zealand