The 2022 Opus Awards: New price for Webcasts

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On March 6, the Conseil québécois de la musique (CQM) presented its 25th edition of the Opus Awards, which took place online for the second year running. The event will evolve to reflect the way audiences listen to music in the era of COVID-19 and digital technology. This is why, for the first time in its history, the CQM has officially presented 10 awards for excellence in webcast concerts and premières. Because the season’s programming has suffered so many interruptions, all the indoor concert categories, including the award for promotion abroad, have been suspended. In total, 142 concerts, including 63 premières, were assessed and 19 Opus Awards presented.

What was played

The gala began with a performance by cellist Stéphane Tétreault and harpist Valérie Milot. The companionable duo played a piece by composer Heitor Villa-Lobos entitled Le chant du cygne noir.

Guitarist Tim Brady world-premièred his composition written for the occasion, Vingt-quatre cordes pour une salle solidaire, with his electric guitar players Instruments of Happiness (Jonathan Barriault, Simon Duchesne and Francis Brunet-Turcotte). Also on the program was a festive Malian piece entitled Sanata, played with virtuosity by Adama Daou on balafon, accompanied by Gabriel Schwartz on saxophone and pandeiro and Olivier Babaz on double bass. This certainly added some pizzazz to an otherwise slightly lacklustre ceremony.

The recorded thanks of the prizewinners weren’t of huge interest, unlike the contribution of interviewer Catherine Perrin, who paid tribute to Claire Guimond, founding member and former artistic director of Arion Orchestre Baroque. For the occasion, the young flutist Alexa Raine-Wright, whom Claire Guimond mentored, gave a brilliant performance of Telemann’s Fantasia No. 11 in G major.

Cash prizes

Thanks to the generosity of partners including the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and the Canada Council, five Opus Awards came with a cash sum or a video project: $10,000 to Composer of the Year Keiko Devaux; $5,000 to Musician of the Year Stéphane Tétreault; $10,000 to Société pour les arts en milieu de santé (which gives concerts in health-care settings), which won the Montreal Inclusion and Diversity award; $3,000 to the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville, winner of the Opus Regions Award for its Regards sur Beethoven project; and the chance to make a short video offered to the P’tits Mélomanes du Dimanche, which won the Opus Québec Award for their project Cloches de récré.

Translation by Cecilia Grayson