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Appointments
Ilya Takser & Daria Fedorova
Vancouver Chopin Society has announced several new appointments. Pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin will be their new artistic director, with pianists Daria Fedorova and Ilya Takser as director of artistic and education programs and chief content executive, respectively. All three musicians have been friends and colleagues since their days studying at Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. Fedorova and Takser form the Fedorova & Takser Piano Duo whose newest recording, featuring a newly published piece for two pianos by the Soviet composer Nikolai Kapustin, was released in early March.
Photo : Stéphane Bourgeois
Clemens Schuldt, music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, has been named the new professor of orchestral conducting at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec. In a press statement Schuldt stated: “One could say that it is a duty for experienced musicians to pass on their know-how and knowledge to the new generation. It is also a sign of my attachment to the city and to Quebecers and my desire to invest myself in it!” Schuldt begins his post in August 2025.
Awards
Jeremy Dutcher
The Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2025 Lifetime Artistic Achievement awards which recognize artists who have made an indelible contribution to cultural life in Canada and around the world. Laureates In the realm of classical and world music include: composer Denis Gougeon; composer, performer, language carrier, ethnomusicologist and activist Jeremy Dutcher; and film director and mentor, Atom Egoyan.
On Feb. 11, Mécénat Musica announced that for the first time since its inception in 2015, their Prix Goyer for Collaborative Emerging Artist has been awarded to two collaborative artists: pianist Meagan Milatz and mezzo-soprano Kristin Hoff. The two 2025-28 laureates are each awarded $125,000 for a total of $250,000.
Meagan Milatz. Photo: Mathieu Deshayes
Milatz is co-artistic and executive director of HausMusique chamber music concerts given in the recently restored Art Deco heritage site Le 9e Grande Salle at Montreal’s Eaton Centre. Milatz performs regularly with top international musicians, including Andrew Wan, concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, mandolinist Avi Avital, and Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berlin Philharmonic. She has a recording contract with ATMA Classique for nine HausMusique albums.
Kristin Hoff. Photo: Kevin-Calixte
Hoff is artistic and general director and co-founder of Musique 3 Femmes, a contemporary opera company which commissions, develops and produces operas by female and nonbinary creators. To date, they have commissioned 11 new operas by emerging female composers and librettists. Hoff is also executive director of Mini-Opéras Santé, where duos of singers perform door-to-door on sidewalks, backstreets and parks in underserved neighbourhoods. Mécénat Musica Prix Goyer is the biggest prize of its kind in Canada and one of the largest in the world for a collaborative emerging artist in classical music.
David P. Leonard accepting the King Charles III Coronation Medal
At a ceremony in Ottawa on March 19, David P. Leonard was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for outstanding contributions to career education and training and workforce development in Canada. In Montreal in 1979, Leonard founded Trebas, the first private recording-arts career college in North America. From its audio core, the school on Sherbrooke Street expanded to film and television production, business technology, and concert and event management. A Toronto branch opened in 1983. Trebas alumni have won more than a dozen Grammys.
Sir Elton John. Photo: Peggy Sirota
Sir Elton John has been announced as the Laureate of the 15th Glenn Gould Prize, The Glenn Gould Foundation announced on March 20. “Elton John has used his enormous talent and his great success to change lives. He’s been courageous in taking on causes, whether AIDS, LGBTQ+ rights, addiction and all sorts of issues that were not popular when he engaged with them,” said Jury Chair, the Rt. Hon. Kim Campbell, former Prime Minister of Canada. Established in 1987 by The Glenn Gould Foundation to honour the legacy of the legendary Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, the prize is awarded biennially and includes a CDN$100,000 cash award for the Laureate, who also selects an exceptional young artist to receive the CDN$25,000 Glenn Gould Protégé Prize. The prize will be presented to Sir Elton John during a special gala celebration to be held in Toronto this fall.
Young Artists
Ellita Gagner
Opéra de Montréal has announced the newest members of its training arm, the Atelier lyrique. The young artists were selected following the National Auditions finals at the annual Talent Gala on Nov. 20, 2024. Mezzo-sopranos Tessa Fackelmann and Ellita Gagner, baritones Colin Mackey and Dante Mullin Santone, soprano Odile Portugais, stage director Thomas Lussier and pianist Tony Stauffer join returning artists baritone Jamal Al Titi, soprano Bridget Esler, mezzo-sopranos Justine Ledoux and Camila Montefusco, and pianist Martine Jomphe for the 2025-26 season.
Elisabeta Cojocaru
Elisabeta Cojocaru and Kimly Mengyin Wang will join Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio as pianist coaches for the 2025-26 season. Cojocaru is an alumna of Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Ottawa and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Université de Montréal. She served as a collaborative pianist for the 2023 Montreal premiere of Sortilegio and for productions with Opera McGill. Wang holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Collaborative Piano from Boston University. She has served as a vocal coach at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
News
Daniela Nardi
Only a year into her tenure, Daniela Nardi is leaving her position as executive director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Rather than look for an immediate replacement,
the choir says it will evaluate its administrative and operational structure to best support its growth trajectory. This assessment will be conducted with the support of the board and senior staff.
Bernard Lagacé
On Feb. 11, harpsichordist and organist Bernard Lagacé passed away at the venerable age of 94. He established himself as a specialist in baroque music, particularly Johann Sebastian Bach, by performing the master’s complete organ works twice at the Église de l’Immaculée-Conception in Montreal, from 1975 to 1977 and from 1987 to 1989. Lagacé devoted much of his career to teaching. In 1957, he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal and then at Concordia University in 1978. His many students included Luc Beauséjour, Christopher Jackson, Hélène Dugal, André Laberge, Lucien and Réjean Poirier, and Wilhelmina Tiemersma. His daughters, Geneviève and Isolde, both became harpsichordists and organists, son Olivier chose the guitar, while son Éric became known as an arranger, composer, and double bassist. In the next generation, granddaughter Mélisande McNabney is now a harpsichordist with many early-music ensembles.
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