CMC - HARRY FREEDMAN RECORDING AWARD

March 23, 2010 - Toronto
Canadian Music Centre Announces Winners 2010 Harry Freedman Recording Award


The Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and the Freedman family are extremely pleased to announce that composer Constantine Caravassilis and pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico have won the inaugural Harry Freedman Recording Award. The Award will be publicly presented on April 27th during Soundstreams “Virtuoso Vibrations” concert in Toronto, at which Harry Freedman’s Bones will be performed.

The Harry Freedman Recording Award, named in memory of the pioneering Canadian composer, has been established to contribute towards the creative costs associated with making audio recordings of Canadian composers’ music.

The Award money will be used to support the recording of two complete cycles of Caravassilis’ music for solo piano, the Book of Fantasias and the Book of Rhapsodies, for a future commercial CD release. Both cycles aim to use the full capacity and potential of the piano without sacrificing expressive content. As such, they require a performer that can meet their significant technical and artistic demands.

Christina Petrowksa Quilico is certainly such a performer. She is one of Canada’s foremost pianists, demonstrating a rare combination of virtuosity, adventurousness and dedication to contemporary music that make her very much in demand as a champion of Canadian composers. Her remarkable skill is met by a broad experience as a recording artist (she holds over 25 CDs to her credit) and an extensive history of collaborating with living composers, all matched by the highest level of musicianship.

Constantine and Christina were selected to receive the Harry Freedman Recording Award by a national jury assembled from leaders in the Canadian music community. In selecting the winners, the jury said “We were very impressed by the quality of the music of this outstanding young composer and by the fact that one of Canada's finest pianists and interpreters of new music had pledged herself to the proposed project.”

The announcement of the Harry Freedman Recording Award arrives at an interesting and important time for the recording and distribution of Canadian composers’ music. Recent changes made by the Department of Canadian Heritage to the Canadian Musical Diversity component of the Canada Music Fund have removed $1.3 million in funding from the Canada Council for the Arts. This funding was allocated to two key programs – Grants for Specialized Music Sound Recording and Grants for Specialized Music Distribution – that were essential to supporting the position of new, creative music in the Canadian recording industry. These funds have since been reallocated to different federal agencies – the Foundation to Assist Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) and its Francophone equivalent MUSICACTION – to support different initiatives. As a result, the introduction of the Harry Freedman Recording Award is extremely timely and significant.