Did you know about…? Programs for emerging artists

1. Young Canada Works

For many of ELAN’s student members their studies have come to a momentary stop: final assignments and papers have been submitted, final art critiques and performances have passed. Student members can now enjoy a well-deserved break but the search for summer employment has become the next priority. Did you know that the Government of Canada has set up the Young Canada Works program for students returning to school (high school, college or university) and for recent college and university graduates.

It gives participants valuable skills within their field of study and the opportunity to be a part of a valuable community. Employments areas include: Aboriginal urban youth employment, Heritage organizations (museums and gallery settings), Both Official Languages, Languages at work, Building careers in heritage, Building careers in English and French. Curious?
Application is free.

Open your account by visiting here www.youngcanadaworks.ca/…/.

2. International Youth Offices of Québec (LOJIQ – Les Offices jeunesse internationaux du Québec)

LOJIQ, a powerful education and employment resource for today’s world. LOJIQ draws on the vitality and success of its member youth agencies and their outreach and involvement in regional, national, and international partnership networks to assist and support Québec youth (18-35 years old) who seek personal and professional development through rewarding and educational international mobility experiences.

LOJIQ offers a unique approach that includes international mobility project development, work sessions abroad, meetings with partners, knowledge acquisition, coaching, and follow up upon return. Through their experience with LOJIQ, young adults gain intercultural awareness and new qualifications while developing a better understanding of international socioeconomic relations.

Each year more than 4,700 young Québec adults travel abroad to complete projects and network with youth in other countries. Areas that participants travel to include: France, Wallonia-Brussels, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Oceania

LOJIQ has on-going travel calls for submissions with funding both for projects it develops and for self-initiated projects proposed by prospective participants. Participants come from diverse backgrounds from the sciences to arts and cultural. The next deadline for proposals is September 30, 2011 for projects in mid-December 2011 to March 2012. For more information, contact 1 800 465-4255 and they will gladly assist you in the language of your comfort (English or French).

3. The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation

The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation offers the largest private individual artist grant for visual artists in Quebec. It is a $10,000 grant to young artists who are practicing in traditional art forms in painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking. Usually, these grants are used for travel abroad or for artistic development through study. Candidates may have already started or completed training in an established school of art; and/or demonstrate, through past work and future plans, a commitment to making art a lifetime career. Application is on-going.

 

Kathleen Winter nominated for Orange Prize

Kathleen Winter, a longtime resident of St. John’s who now lives in Montreal, is nominated for the 2011 Orange Prize, a British award for female authors of fiction, for her book Annabel.

Excerpt from The Gazette, April 12, 2011

Two women in Canada have been shortlisted for the 2011 Orange Prize, a British award for female authors of fiction – including a former writer for the children’s TV show Sesame Street.

The six final candidates for the 16th annual Orange Prize were announced Tuesday.

Kathleen Winter, a longtime resident of St. John’s who now lives in Montreal, is nominated for Annabel.

(…) Emma Donoghue, an Irish writer now living in Canada, has been nominated for Room, a tale of a boy whose mother tells him on his fifth birthday, for the first time, that there’s a world outside the room in which they’ve been living.

Continue reading on http://www.montrealgazette.com/…/

Atwater Poetry Project with Gillian Jerome and John Steffler + poetry recording podcasts

Photo credit: Allyson Kukel

Gillian Jerome and John Steffler will be reading at the Atwater Library Auditorium
1200 Atwater Avenue

Thursday, April 14, 2011 at 7:00 pm

Gillian Jerome‘s first book of poems, Red Nest won the 2010 ReLit Poetry Prize and was short-listed for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her first book of non-fiction, Hope In Shadows, Stories and Photographs from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (with Brad Cran) won the 2008 City of Vancouver Book Award and was shortlisted for a BC Book Prize. She teaches literature at UBC, poetry to kids at inner-city schools, and workshops with Geist magazine, and edits poetry for Event Magazine.
Recently named to the shortlist of the prestigious Griffin prize, poet and novelist

JOHN STEFFLER has also won the Thomas Head Raddall award and the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and was shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Award for his novel The Afterlife of George Cartwright. His seven books of poetry include the acclaimed 1998 collection That Night We Were Ravenous, which won the Atlantic Poetry Prize. Steffler was Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2008. Lookout, his latest collection, was published last spring by McClelland and Stewart.

If you’ve missed seeing poetry readings, you can listen to recordings on the Atwater website

Leonard Cohen awarded Glenn Gould prize

Leonard Cohen has been awarded the Glenn Gould Prize. (Photograph by: Kevin Winter / Getty Images, National Post)

Postmedia News April 1, 2011

Singer, songwriter, poet and novelist Leonard Cohen has been awarded the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

The international award is handed out every other year to a living artist who has made a unique lifetime contribution that has “enriched the human condition through the arts and manifests the values of innovation, inspiration and transformation,” reads a press release. “A tribute to (the late pianist) Glenn Gould’s artistry and his multi-faceted contributions to culture, the prize promotes the vital connection between artistic excellence and the transformation of lives.”

Cohen was chosen from international candidates nominated by the public and will receive a cash prize of $50,000. A young artist of his choosing will also receive The City of Toronto Glenn Gould Protege Prize of $15,000. Cohen and his protege will receive their awards at a gala ceremony in Toronto and their work will be honoured through a series of public events later this year.

Continue reading on www.canada.com/…/

 

Junos & ADISQ make habit of ignoring other side of linguistic divide

Win Butler and Arcade Fire perform their song "Rococo" at the 2011 Juno Awards at Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Sunday evening, March 27, 2011. The 2011 Juno Awards, hosted by Toronto native Drake, are celebrating their 40th anniversary. Photograph by: Peter J Thompson, NATIONAL POST Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/entertainment/Arcade+Fire+said+best+Wake/4552937/story.html#ixzz1IZOoZfzt

Source: www.montrealgazette.com/…/

Arcade Fire said it best: Wake up

The Junos and the ADISQ gala have each made a habit of ignoring important acts on the other side of the linguistic divide By BRENDAN KELLY, The Gazette, April 4, 2011

I sense a trend here. First you have the ADISQ gala and its downright strange snubbing of Arcade Fire. Here is Montreal’s – heck, the world’s – hottest rock band, and the annual Quebec music awards have never even tossed the celebrated group a measly nomination, never mind an actual Félix trophy. Weird.

Then there’s the recent Jutra awards giving the cold shoulder to two anglo movies, The Trotsky and Barney’s Version, and one multicultural drama, Sortie 67. Some of us figured those movies were not getting much love from the Quebec awards at least partly because the flicks are not pure laine enough for the Jutra voters.

Then the Juno awards come along and happily ignore the booming franco Québécois music scene. Now, I don’t expect the Junos to be a fluently bilingual affair, but for something that proudly calls itself “Canada’s music awards,” it’s bizarre to realize that its 40th-anniversary edition on March 27 did not feature a single francophone performer, or even a mot or two en français.

Even Arcade Fire, who dominated the awards, went unilingual English for the night. This after they made quite an impression by giving a shout-out to Montreal in both English and French at the Grammys in February.

So what’s the trend? Awards shows on both sides of the linguistic/cultural divide are ignoring what’s happening on the other side of the Berlin Wall-like separation that appears to be between Canada’s two major cultures.

Read more: www.montrealgazette.com/…/

Junos: Arcade Fire Cleans Up

While Arcade Fire was the early story of the night, a Canadian icon also made his mark among the younger crowd. Neil Young, who released the album Le Noise in September, earned the adult alternative album of the year and was slated to be honoured with the Allan Waters Humanitarian Prize. Later in the show, Young was also poised to go up against Drake and Justin Bieber for the coveted artist of the year award.

Read more at: MontrealGazette.com

World’s Largest Poetry Competition Offers $50,000 Prize for One Short Poem

To reflect its global perspective, the Montreal Prize has assembled an editorial board of accomplished poets from Australia, Canada, England, Guyana, India, Jamaica, Malawi, Nigeria, Northern Ireland and the US. These poets will select 50 poems for the competition’s shortlist, which will be published in a unique global poetry anthology, representing the very latest work from around the world. From these finalists, Sir Andrew Motion, the 2011 prize judge and former UK poet laureate, will select the winner of the $50,000 prize.

For complete info and PDF, click here.

Colleen Curran at the Centaur

True Nature is one of two world premieres included in the six-play subscription season. The other is Morris Panych’s In Absentia, about a woman living alone in a chalet awaiting the return of her husband who has been missing for four years (Jan. 31 to March 4).

While not a premiere, the Centaur production of Haunted Hillbilly promises to be an updated version of an edgy Country and Western musical initially produced at the Segal Studio. Adapted by Graham Cuthbertson from a novel of the same title by Derek McCormack, with music by Matthew Barber and Cuthbertson, this Sidemart Theatrical Grocery creation will be directed, again, by Andrew Shaver (May 8 to June 3).

Read more at MontrealGazette.com

Montreal’s Kathleen Winter on Orange Prize long list

Kathleen Winter

From the Globe and Mail:

Canadian writer Kathleen Winter entered the big leagues yesterday with the announcement that her debut novel, Annabel, had been named to the long list of 20 books competing for the 2011 Orange Prize for fiction by women writers.

Also named to the long list was Irish-Canadian Emma Donoghue forRoom, a worldwide bestseller that beat Annabel for this year’s Rogers Writers’ Trust award in Canada and was nominated for the Booker Prize.

(…)

The short list for the $48,000 prize will be announced April 12, with the winner to be revealed at an awards ceremony June 8.

Read the full article on www.theglobeandmail.com/…

Music: Ottawa winner at Met Opera contest

Sly, a student at McGill University’s Schulich School of Music in Montreal, performed an aria from Handel’s Rinaldo as well as Wolfram’s Song to the Evening Star from Wagner’s Tannhaeuser for Sunday’s Grand Finals concert — the climax of the prestigious annual competition.

Each year, hundreds of young opera singers between the ages of 20-30 compete for cash prizes and the chance to take the Met stage to sing before an audience of opera executives, talent agents, critics and industry reps.

Read More at: CBC.ca