THERE are weeks to go until this year's MG Alba Scots Trad Music Awards, and already, Simon Thoumire, the impresario behind the event, is scouting out the venue for 2015's presentation ceremony.

"The music keeps moving on apace," he tells me, "and we have to be ready to acknowledge that and reflect its continuing progress on all fronts in a very positive way."

The 2014 "Trads", as the event has come to be affectionately known, takes place in Inverness Leisure Centre on Saturday, December 13 and for Thoumire, it comes at the end of "another amazing year" when Scottish traditional music in all its various forms has continued to keep up with technological advances and its practitioners have shown themselves to be as media-savvy as their pop and rock counterparts.

If the popular impression of folk music, rightly or wrongly, was once that of people of a certain age and of a certain, possibly scruffy, sartorial style preserving songs and tunes in a way that had served generations before them, then that, says Thoumire, has long gone.

"We noticed when we started the Young Traditional Musician Of The Year competition in 2001 that the musicians were already conscious of the image they were projecting," he says. "And by the time the Trad Awards came along two years later, I think the scene as a whole was ready to show that folkies could dress up and the musicians could look cool on stage - they know they have to look good and present themselves well now with the arrival of things like YouTube, which can be a great promotional tool."

It's an important phrase, "the scene as a whole", because the Trads encompass everyone and everything that falls under the traditional music umbrella. From the performers - or what might in pop music be seen as the stars, including singers, folk groups and pipe bands - to the people who pass on traditional music skills to those who promote the music in venues, at events and through the media, the Trads have made a virtue of bringing them together and recognising their contributions.

And if the awards these days seem, in some categories, to be weighted towards the younger age range, then the Traditional Music Hall of Fame, which has become incorporated into the event, acknowledges those whose contributions stretch - or stretched - over a much longer period. The youth angle also gives a true reflection of the many young musicians and singers who are out there performing, keeping the music alive and thriving with new sounds being added all the time but also with a respect for traditional forms.

As the CD that comes free with today's Sunday Herald illustrates, beats and electronica can be an effective element of traditional music, without a sense of their introduction watering down the music's essential elements and flavour.

The CD also illustrates, as do the nominations for the awards, the diversity that's at work. For instance, this year's Live Act of the Year shortlist contrasts Skipinnish, who brings the concept of a traditional Highland dance band into the contemporary age, with fiddler Garvin Marwick's multi-hued and widely influenced Journeyman Spectacular, Skerryvore's effervescent, hard-line folk-rock and Peatbog Faeries' dance floor-friendly reels, club beats and trance exotica.

There's a similarly wide choice in the Instrumentalist of the Year shortlist. It pitches the ever-enterprising Mike Vass, whose In The Wake Of Neil Gunn project has been one of the year's most imaginative and musically satisfying treats, alongside much-in-demand drummer and percussionist James MacIntosh, and the notably versatile multi-instrumentalist Ewan MacPherson. There are also two harp players: Catriona McKay, who has continued to expand the techniques and expression of her instrument to the extent that she is now virtually out on her own at the vanguard of Scottish harp playing, and Rachel Newton, who has had a busy year as a session musician, composer and recording artist in her own right.

For Simon Thoumire, the awards' geographical inclusivity - village hall events and venues are valued every bit as much as big city operations - is crucial, as is the need for the ceremony itself to move around the country.

"We've taken the awards to the Highlands before, to Fort William, but this will be the first time we've been to the capital of the Highlands," he says. "When we started back in 2003 we didn't want this to be seen as something that happened just in the Central Belt because the music happens all over Scotland. It can mean having to completely transform a venue so that it looks good for the TV cameras but we have a great team and the idea of moving all over the country means that, in the long run, everybody gets a home game."

The Scottish Trad Music Awards ceremony and gala concert is at 7pm on December 13 in Inverness Leisure Centre (tickets are available from Eden Court Theatre, box office 01463 234 234)

Voting is open now, until November 28

To cast your vote visit http://projects.scottishcultureonline.com/scotstradmusicawards/voting/