Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts presents the BADER AND OVERTON CANADIAN CELLO COMPETITION ONLINE ON CBC.ca/music
Kingston, Ontario… Eight of Canada’s most promising young musicians will be competing for a $20,000 prize before a national audience on CBC Radio. The Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts (“the Isabel”) at Queen’s University announces that the BADER AND OVERTON CANADIAN CELLO COMPETITION will be online, webcast on CBC.ca/music. The competition will be held on June 24-27, 2020. Originally, the cellists would have performed at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. In light of COVID-19, the Isabel converted the competition to an online competition with all semi-final and final performances to be webcast on CBC.ca/music and hosted by Yolanda Bruno, the winner of the Isabel Overton Bader Canadian Violin Competition in 2017.
This Competition invited cellists who are Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada (as defined by Citizenship and Immigration Canada), between the ages of eighteen (18) to twenty-nine (29) as of January 1, 2020. Eight semi-finalists will perform in the afternoons of June 24 and 25th. Subsequently, three finalists will perform in the concerto round (with piano) on June 27, 2020.
The eight semi-finalists are: Dominique Beausejour-Ostiguy, Bryan Cheng, Olivia Cho, Leland Ko, Jonah Krolik, Andreas Schmalhofer , Michael Song, and Tate Zawadiuk. The semi-finalists’ biographies can be found athttps://www.queensu.ca/theisabel/bader-overton-canadian-cello-competition-2019. Competition repertoire includes a special commission, The Turmoil of Madame Butterfly by Canadian composer Marjan Mozetich.
The Bader and Overton Canadian Cello Competition has been made possible through the generosity of the Bader Philanthropies, Inc. The Bader’s vision, imagination, and generosity will enable gifted emerging musicians to learn, inspire, perform, and develop their careers.
“I am delighted to welcome such outstanding talent to the Bader and Overton Canadian Cello Competition at Queen’s University, made possible through the generous support of Isabel Bader and Bader Philanthropies,” states Queen’s Principal, Patrick Deane. “These extraordinary young artists undoubtably have a promising future and together, we show how powerful music can be at a time when the world longs for creativity, inspiration and above all, optimism.”
“The silver lining of the COVID-19 isolation has been the tremendous boost in collaborations and streaming expertise,’ statesTricia Baldwin, Director of the Isabel. “We are tremendously grateful to the collaboration with CBC with thanks to CBC Executive Producer Denise Ball and Producer Robert Rowat who are great champions of nurturing the next generation of artists in Canada. With audio excellence in mind, the expert Isabel production team, led by Technical Director Aaron Holmberg, has worked with recording and streaming specialists in the field to secure high fidelity sound. The performances by the eight cellists will be remotely streamed from seven different cities in three countries using OBN streaming software with VIMEO as the ingest landing page. From here, the performance feeds will be sent to the CBC.ca/music site.”
Each performer has been sent a WARM stereo microphone kit and FOCUSRITE USB interface and microphone stands to ensure that the Isabel is capturing the full sound at source. This $1,200 kit is the competitors’ own to keep and use for their future webcasting adventures. The jury has been provided with Sennheiser headphones to maximize the audio sound and listener comfort.”
The jury members are: Minna Rose Chung (University of Manitoba), Denise Djokic (University of Ottawa, NYO faculty), Joseph Elworthy (Vancouver Academy of Music), Matt Haimovitz (McGill University), David Hetherington (Glenn Gould School RCM, NYO faculty), Christina Mahler (former Tafelmusik Principal Cellist), Paul Marleyn (University of Ottawa), Evan Mitchell (Music Director, Kingston Symphony), Shauna Rolston (University of Toronto), and Wolf Tormann (Queen’s University).
THE PRIZES
FIRST PRIZE: The first prizewinner will be awarded The Marion Overton Dick Memorial Cello Prize for $20,000 CAD, a future engagement to perform with the Kingston Symphony, and a future engagement to perform a recital at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts that will be recorded by CBC Music for national broadcast.
SECOND PRIZE: The second prizewinner will be awarded The Clifford Overton Prize for $6,000 CAD.
THIRD PRIZE: The third prizewinner will be awarded The Margaret Foster and Heather Dick Prize for
$4,000 CAD.
THE BADER FAMILY AUDIENCE PRIZE: $1,000 CAD.
For further information, please contact:
Tricia Baldwin, Director, Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts
Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts at Queen’s University
The award-winning Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts is a beautiful venue with exceptional acoustics. The Isabel presents internationally acclaimed artists on its presentation series, and the building supports Queen’s music, drama and film undergraduate educational programs. The Isabel was designed by Oslo/New York-based firm Snøhetta and Ottawa’s N45, with acoustics and theatre design by ARUP and Theatre Projects Consultants. For a virtual tour, please visit: http://www.theisabel.ca/content/virtual-walkthrough.
