Considering the size of New Zealand, we’re teeming with a relatively large number of authentic, funny and clever, world-class children’s music acts. Over the years the Top 40 NZ album charts has seen many of them chart, so it should be no surprise that eventually someone in the industry, namely APRA AMCOS in 2008, would decide to honour the genre with its own music award. The Children’s Music Awards 2016 will be held in Auckland in early August.

This year the finalists are…

APRA Best Children’s Music Song

• Cooking Up a Song – written by Anna Van Riel & Daniel Fairley
• My Nana’s Farm – written by Anika Moa
• Pō Mārie – written by Lucy Hiku & Jenny Payne, Itty Bitty Beats

Recorded Music NZ Best Children’s Music Album

• ‘Cooking Up a Song’ – Anna van Riel
• ‘Lay Your Head Down’ – Itty Bitty Beats
• ‘Lollipop Man’ – Peter Weatherall

Best Children’s Music Video

• Aotearoa, Home of Our Hearts – video and song by Rainbow Rosalind
• Mighty Maui – video and song by Jeffrey Addison
• Weird Creatures song by Luke Fitzgerald, video by Simon Crane and Roxy Lyon

The top entries from the 2016 Children’s Music Awards will be featured on Music Box 2016 – an album released to coincide with the awards. Music Box will be distributed free to libraries and child-friendly organisations across the country, and will be available as a free download from www.apraamcos.co.nz in August.