The Opus prizes, for their 26e edition, notably crowned, on Sunday, Bruce Liu, for his international influence, and Pauline Vaillancourt, for her entire career.
It was Marie-Annick Béliveau, the new artistic director of Chants Libres, who paid tribute to Pauline Vaillancourt by performing an excerpt from Capricorn Songs by Giacinto Scelsi, a show created and performed in 1995 by the winner and spectacularly revived in 2015 by her runner-up. The Tribute Prize awarded by the Board of Directors of the Conseil québécois de la musique to Pauline Vaillancourt salutes her career as an opera singer and as founder and artistic director of Chants Libres.
Among the general prizes giving rise to grants, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec awarded $10,000 to “composer of the year” Caroline Lizotte; the Conseil des arts de Montréal $10,000 to Ensemble Obiora, winner of the “Montreal Inclusion and Diversity” prize; the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications $5,000 to Arion Orchester Baroque, winner of the “Production of the Year — Young Audiences” prize; and the Canada Council for the Arts, $5,000 to Bruce Liu, named performer of the year. The winner of the Chopin Competition is also, logically, crowned in terms of influence abroad. La Nef in “Traditional Quebec Music”, Orford Music, “Opus Regions Prize”, and Les Violons du Roy, “Opus Québec Prize”, for the educational film project Carnival of the Animalswere also awarded.
A real discovery
Certain special prizes are not accompanied by any particular bonus, such as that of the “discovery of the year”, awarded to Guillaume Villeneuve. As this is the first time we have heard of him, Google tells us that he is a violinist of French origin and that he plays with Arion in particular. Matthias Maute is crowned artistic director of the year. Aramusique is the specialized broadcaster and the Théâtre de la ville the multidisciplinary broadcaster that marked 2022.
Under the various concerts, the 3e Symphony by Mahler from the Orchester de l’Agora conducted by Nicolas Ellis is the musical event of the year. It is interesting to see the OSM’s “Piano concertos and symphonic poems” program with Rafael Payare and Daniil Trifonov win the award in the “Concert of the year — multiple repertoires” category. This is an evening of incredible artistic tension, the legitimacy of which had been challenged upstream by demonstrators.
It should be noted that Andrew Wan and Charles Richard-Hamelin won two prizes: that of the concert of the year in “classical, romantic and post-romantic music” for the Sonatas for violin and piano of Schumann and that of the album of the year in the same slot with the Sonatas for violin and piano n° 4, 9 and 10 by Beethoven. The violinist Marie Nadeau-Tremblay, the tandem Valérie Milot and Stéphane Tétreault, as well as Quasar, are the other winners for recordings. Les Violons du Roy, the Molinari Quartet and Sixtrum, allied with Le Vivier and Eunic, are the winners of the concert categories.