“The Montreal-based Azrieli Foundation has undertaken a mission to discover and celebrate creative talent in music [with] the Azrieli Music Prizes [valued] at a total value of $200,000 each—including a commissioning prize, a gala concert, national premiere and recording for release—the largest in Canada to be awarded to composers,” writes William Littler in Saturday’s (11/21) Toronto Star (Canada). Keiko Devaux, Yotam Haber and Yitzhak Yedid are the three winners of this year’s prizes, for their compositions Arras, Estro Poetico-armonico III, and Kadosh Kadosh and Cursed, respectively. “The prizewinning compositions are traditionally premiered at a gala concert in Montreal, only, thanks to COVID-19 … organizers decided first to [move the event to] to the … intimate Salle Bourgie of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. But as Quebec’s provincial pandemic regulations kept changing, a permitted audience of 50 had to be … eliminated altogether in favor of an Oct. 22 live-streamed concert…. All three composers were, in fact, instructed to stay home, even Keiko Devaux, who lives in Montreal….Together with an arrangement of the late Montreal composer Pierre Mercure’s ‘Dissidence’ (with Sharon Azrieli as soprano soloist), the three new pieces filled the Salle Bourgie with reasons to listen.”
Change font size
