Industry updates

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Welcome to the debut of our new music industry column! This is a space to share news about new music initiatives, commissions, tours, competitions and awards, new appointments and artist roster additions. Send your news for inclusion in future columns to shira{at}lascena{dot}org.

Opera on the Avalon of St. John’s, Newfoundland, has just announced its first commissioned   opera, scheduled to premiere in 2016. The opera will commemorate the 100th anniversary of the WWI Battle of Beaumont Hamel, in which the 1st Newfoundland Regiment suffered heavy losses. Founded in 2007 by soprano and Artistic Director Cheryl Hickman and pianist Jennifer Matthews, the company produces fully-staged operas with a professional orchestra. Opera on the Avalon is the fastest-growing world class professional operatic summer training program in North America. This year’s festival begins on May 28th, and will feature Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi.

Classical Revolution Toronto, represented by its founder, violinist Edwin Huizenga, was one of sixteen chapters to attend the classical collective’s first ever international conference in Chicago in late April. The three-day event included a series of seminars, youth outreach programs, and live performances. Founded in 2006 at Revolution Cafe in the Mission District of San Francisco, Classical Revolution presents chamber music concerts and jam sessions in bars, cafés and other accessible venues. The Classical Revolution model has spread around the world, with nearly 30 active chapters in cities throughout Europe and North America, including Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Halifax.

Jeunesses Musicales of Canada, one of the country’s most important forces in the development and education of young classical musicians and audiences,  has just announced the appointment of Danièle LeBlanc as the organization’s new general and artistic director. LeBlanc has held various positions within several of Montreal’s major cultural organizations, including the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM Competition), Canadian Vocal Arts Institute, and the Montreal International Musical Competition. As a mezzo-soprano, LeBlanc was a winner of the Jeunesses Musicales Foundation’s Joseph-Rouleau Prize in 1996. LeBlanc succeeds  Jacques Marquis, who held the post of Executive and Artistic Director for 10 years, following his role of Artistic Administrator with the Orchestre Métropolitain.

The SOCAN Foundation has established the SOCAN Foundation Charitable Fund, to be administered by the Tides Canada Foundation, to support charitable activities benefiting music creators and publishers across Canada. The Fund aims to create greater awareness and education for a better understanding of the value of music and copyright and its importance to the cultural and economic life of our society. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) administers the performing rights of more than 100,000 composers, authors and music publishers by licensing the use of their music in Canada.

Conductor and composer Lydia Adams, Small World Music Society founder Alan Davis and Michael M. Koerner, C.M., Chancellor of The Royal Conservatory, are all nominees for the Roy Thomson Hall Award of Recognition from the Toronto Arts Foundation. The winner of the $10,000 cash prize, which recognizes creative, performing, administrative, volunteer or philanthropic contributions to Toronto’s musical life, will be announced on June 21st.

The Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal and the Conseil des arts de Montréal, have announced 17 nominees in four categories for the 2011 Prix Arts-Affaires de Montréal, which recognizes the involvement of businesspeople in Greater Montreal’s arts and cultural scene. Nominees include arts patrons Pierre Bourgie and David B. Sela, both in the Arts/business Personality category. Winners will be announced on May 31st.

New additions to the roster of Latitude 45 Arts Promotion, Inc., a busy classical music agency based in Montreal, include conductor Daniel Myssyk, founder and artistic director of the Appassionata Chamber Orchestra, and Orchester Jakobsplatz Munich. The German orchestra, founded in 2005 by artistic director Daniel Grossmann and made up of musicians from more than twenty countries, focuses on rarely played works by Jewish composers as well as music of the 20th and 21st centuries. A first North American tour for the orchestra is in the works for November 2013.