| 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | Winners |
OSM STANDARD LIFE COMPETITION
73nd Edition
November 21 to 24, 2012
PIANO AND PERCUSSION
HISTORY
Since its beginning in 1940, the OSM Competition Standard Life has launched the careers of nearly 300 prize-winners on the national and international scenes. It has also, over time, succeeded in attracting prestigious partners and judges of great reputation, who have supported the Competition in carrying out its educational mission of promoting young Canadian musicians.
For each of its editions, numerous people have worked passionately at making the Competition a reality and ensuring the success of one of the most venerable musical-education projects in Montréal, which, though a locally based event, has become, given the provenance of its candidates, a competition that fully represents Québec and Canada.
The early years
When he agreed to become music director of the Société des Concerts symphoniques de Montréal (which would bear the name Orchestre symphonique de Montréal beginning in 1954), Wilfrid Pelletier, an educator and visionary, spared no effort to meet a dual challenge: contributing to the training of musicians, and advancing the musical education of his fellow citizens.
The Matinées Symphoniques
On November 16, 1935, Wilfrid Pelletier launched the Matinées Symphoniques, concerts intended for a school-age audience and aimed at initiating young Montrealers in the pleasures of symphonic music. Involved in the project from its beginnings, Mrs. Antonia David, wife of Senator Athanase David, created the Comité Féminin de propagande, which solicited donations from benefactors and organized fundraising campaigns, as well as the Comité des Matinées, dedicated to recruiting audiences from schools. Organizers of the project saw their efforts crowned with success when teachers, students and parents literally overwhelmed the Auditorium du Plateau on Saturday, November 16, 1935, for the inaugural concert directed by Wilfrid Pelletier.
Beginning with the first season, six Matinées were offered on Saturday afternoons, adorned with commentary by Wilfrid Pelletier, biographical notes, and musical examples presented by Orchestra musicians. Courtesy of Edmond Archambault's music business, a six-page booklet was handed out to each audience member, the first link in a collaborative relationship with Archambault that would last more than 25 years.
Inspired by the success of the biligual Matinées, a similar formula was drafted for English-speaking audiences. The Young People's Symphony Concerts, created by Wilfrid Pelletier and Mrs. Alexander Howatson – then vice-president of the Montreal Ladies Musical Club – were launched on Saturday, October 22, 1947, under the direction of the maestro at the Montreal High School Auditorium.
The origins of the Competition
Encouraged by the success of the project, the Comité des Matinées expanded on the approach of the Matinées symphoniques by adding competition and prizes. The initial competition consisted of answering (in writing, on the back of the educational booklet) the ten questions put to the audience by Wilfrid Pelletier at the end of each session. An annual prize of $50 was offered by Edmond Archambault to the overall winner.
In the same spirit, other annual competitions were established to cultivate all the talents of the young audience. Thus were born the writing competition, the “scrapbook” competition, and later the Concours de solfège (solfeggio competition), organized and supervised by composer Claude Champagne. At the same period, other grants were made available to stimulate musical development or to assist recipients in pursuing advanced studies: the Prix Jean-Lallemand (a $500 grant established in 1936 to promote the composition of Canadian works), the Prix Paul-Baby (a $100 grant awarded for several seasons to young talents between the ages of four and nine to develop their musical aptitudes with a qualified teacher), scholarships from the École Normale de Musique at the Congrégation de Notre-Dame, as well as grants from composer Gabriel Cusson, awarded for harmony and composition.
To encourage students in the study of a musical instrument, an Auditions Committee was also formed whose task it was to submit the names of suitable candidates to Wilfrid Pelletier (or to Désiré Defauw, who replaced him as director and host of the Matinées, from 1941 to 1946), who would invite young performers to appear as soloists or concert artists.
The Prix Archambault
To support and encourage in a more precise way young artists completing their musical training, a new performance competition was established in 1940: the Prix Archambault. Created by Edmond Archambault, its goal was to help young Canadian artists continue their studies in piano, in string instruments and in voice with a view to undertaking a professional career. Three $100 grants were awarded in each of the disciplines. In addition to the privilege of performing as soloists with the Orchestra, the winners contributed their talents to a concert presented by the Archambault firm at the Ritz Carlton Hotel.
After a two-year hiatus, the competition resumed its activities in 1965 under the name OSM Competition. A volunteer committee devoted exclusively to the annual event joined the administrative personnel of the Orchestra, and has contributed to its success since then.
Renowned prizewinners
Winners of the Prix Archambault and the OSM Competition are recognized for their talent and have prestigious prizes and honors bestowed on them, opening doors to opportunities in Milan, London, Paris (where they pursue further studies in institutions such as the famous Conservatoire américain de Fontainebleau with Nadia Boulanger) or New York, at the renowned Juilliard School.
Originally devoted primarily to young musicians living in the greater Montréal area, in the 1960s the Competition spread its wings to include all Canadian artists. Thus, in 1969 the OSM Competition honored its first prizewinner living outside Québec: pianist Angela Hewitt.
For the last 20 years or so every area of the country has been represented, with many of the candidates already doing advanced studies in Europe or in the U.S. when they enroll in the Competition (among other places at The Juilliard School, at the Indiana University School of Music and at the Cleveland Institute of Music).
Devoted in its earlier years to voice, piano, and violin and cello, the Competition has gradually come to include all the families of the orchestra, presenting them alternately as of 1973. The Competition was open to the “wind instruments” (brass and woodwinds) category for the first time in 1969, omitting however the trombone, which first appeared in 1980, and the tuba, in 1999. And if the viola appeared in the “strings” category as early as 1971, the double bass has enjoyed a more checkered career: after having to wait until 1986, it vanished in 1988 to reappear, definitively this time, in 1994. Percussion did not make an appearance until 2002, while the harp will have to wait until 2007 before joining the other instruments.
Prizes and parterns
Over the years the number of OSM Competition prizes has increased, making the event one of the more interesting going for young artists. Today the OSM Competition is one of the very few to offer recipients four categories of prize: cash prizes; training scholarships enabling musicians to broaden the scope of their art; a professional audio recording in one of the Radio-Canada studios, and, finally, the chance to perform before an audience not only with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal but in recital as well.
For those prizes the Competition is indebted to the generosity of collaborators, partners and patrons, without whom these financial benefits would not be anything like what they are. Some of them are associates who have been faithful since the very beginning, such as the Volunteer Committee and the Amis de l'Art Foundation (Aline-Hector-Perrier Scholarship). Others have joined forces with the event over the past twenty years, sterling examples of the connections that the Competition forges with its Canadian community (Société Radio-Canada, OSM Musicians' Association, Banff Centre, Orford Arts Centre, Domaine Forget, Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, Northern Arts and Cultural Centre - Yellowknife, Yamaha), as well as in the United States (Lyon and Healy Harps).
Among those who have stood out through the extent of their support we may mention Standard Life, who since 1992 has been offering the first prizes to winners in addition to proving themselves an indispensable partner at several other levels. In 2004 the company became principal sponsor of the event, which is now known as the OSM Standard Life Competition.
A promising future
The OSM Competition and the history of which is intimately connected with that of the Orchestra as well as that of its community, has carried out the mission propounded by Wilfrid Pelletier since 1940.
Organization and the success of the Competition depends to a great degree on the commitment and the quality of its volunteers, a fact underscored time and again by Pierre Béique, General Manager Emeritus of the Orchestra. Working closely with the OSM, the Competition Committee – consisting of about 15 members – informs the public, welcomes candidates from here and outside the country, solicits financial support, develops new partnerships and takes on an important part of administrative duties. As a result of its growing notoriety, the Competition now has a coordinator and a permanent secretary.
Prizewinners
Organizers of the OSM Competition take pride in pointing out that a large number of Canadian soloists renowned on the national or international scene have been prizewinners at this event. Among those artists may be mentioned singers Léopold Simoneau (1944), Joseph Rouleau (1949), Nicole Lorange (1965), Marie-Danielle Parent (1979), Lyne Fortin (1985) and Karina Gauvin (1987), Aline Kutan (1993) and Phillip Addis (2004); pianists Ronald Turini (1950), Henri Brassard (1965), Janina Fialkowska (1967), André Laplante (1968), Angela Hewitt (1969, 1975), Louis Lortie (1972), Stéphane Lemelin (1973), Louise-André Baril (1973), Naida Cole (1989), Richard Raymond (1989) and Wonny Song (1993); violinists Chantal Juillet (1974), Angèle Dubeau (1976), Scott St. John (1982), Martin Beaver (1986), James Ehnes (1992) and Alexandre da Costa (1996); cellists Denis Brott (1965, 1967, 1971), Gary Hoffman (1978) and Ofra Harnoy (1978); oboist Philippe Magnan (1982), trombonist Alain Trudel (1984), trumpeter Jens Lindemann (1990) – as well as prizewinner in violin Lewis Greenblatt (1965), today better known as Lewis Furey, composer and singer-songwriter.
Many prizewinners work in the musical capitals of Europe or North America as orchestral or chamber musicians or teachers, musicians like violinists Meyer Stolow (1952), Malcolm Lowe (1971), Céline Leathead (1978), David Lefèvre (1988) and Hélène Collerette (1990), or flutists Jeffrey Khaner (1978) and Joanna G'froerer (1990).
A good number of Competition prizewinners have decided to pursue a career as musicians with the OSM itself: violinists Gilles Baillargeon (1949), Gérald Sergent (1955), Mario Masella (1956), Denise Lupien (1974), Jean-François Rivest (1976) and Jonathan Crow (1996) ; cellists Lyze Vézina (1950) and Suzanne Perrault-Bezkorvany (1951). Still with the OSM today are violinists Marie Lacasse (1984), Marianne Dugal (1994), and Andrew Wan (2007), concertmaster of the Orchestra, violist Jun-Yun Lambert-Chen (2007), bassoonist Stéphane Lévesque (1994), oboist Pierre-Vincent Plante (1974), flutist Denis Bluteau (1986) and horn player Denys Derome (1996).
Teaching plays an important role in the lives of a great many prizewinners. While some have opted to divide their careers between teaching and performance activities, others have abandoned the stage almost completely in order to communicate their passion for music to their students on a full-time basis. Pianists Jeanne Landry (1945), Gilles Manny (1948), Henri Brassard (1965), Robert Mayerovitch (1970), Thomas Green (1970), Paul Berkovitz (1971), Jacinthe Couture (1973) and Jacques C. Després (1977); singers Marguerite Laliberté-DeNoncourt (1948), Jacqueline Martel Cistellini (1957), Sylvia Saurette (1960), Céline Dussault (1971) and Micah Yiu (1987), violinists Martin Foster (1970) and Lucie Robert (1974) and cellist Raymonde Martin (1947) are some of those artists who have devoted or who continue to devote time to young people in order to share with them their rich experience and considerable knowledge.
Whether as soloists, chamber players, orchestra musicians, chorus singers, conductors, composers, teachers, instrument makers, musical therapists – or whether they've decided on a career in another area, as Moses Gelfand (1944) and Pierre Boux (1959) have done – all OSM Competition prizewinners contribute directly, through their passion for music, to enriching cultural life in Canada.
The Jury
Since the OSM Competition's inception, juries have consisted of musicians, instrumentalists, singers, conductors, composers, music directors or producers of musical programming at Radio-Canada. This diversity in jury members' backgrounds has enabled juries to approach the young performers from different points of view.
Conductors Kent Nagano (Music Director of the OSM since 2006), Charles Dutoit, Yoav Talmi, Agnès Grossman and Pascal Verrot; singers Colette Boky, Nicole Lorange, Louis Quilico and Joseph Rouleau; pianists André Laplante, Stéphane Lemelin and Charles Reiner; cellist Matt Haimovitz, oboist Louise Pellerin, and harpist Jennifer Swartz, composers Walter Boudreau, Denis Gougeon, Jacques Hétu, Clermont Pépin and André Prévost – these are some of the musicians who have sat on Competition juries over the years.
For the last few years, in addition to musicians from or living in Québec, international artists have been invited to serve as jurors for the event, among them pianists Michel Béroff, Michel Dalberto and Yoheved Kaplinsky, violinists Andrew Dawes, Ida Haendel and Régis Pasquier, violist Rivka Golani. We have also welcomed cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, Antonio Lysy , Tsuyoshi Tsutsum and Eric Kim; clarinetist James Campbell, sopranos Renata Scotto, Françoise Pollet and Virginia Zeani, trumpeters Jens Lindemann and Ronald Romm, as well as percussionists Emmanuel Séjourné, Anthony Cirone and Leigh Howard Stevens. Personalities of the international musical world also participate in this event. Among others, let us mention Jean-Pierre Brossmann, General Manager of the Théâtre du Châtelet (Paris) from 1996 to 2006, Welz Kauffman, President and CEO of the Ravinia Festival (Chicago), Henry Fogel, president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (10-985-2003), Charles Hamlen, Chairman of IMG Artists, producer Sid McLauchlan (Deutsche Grammophon), agents Walter Homburger and Earl Blacburn (Opus 3) as well as Barry Shiffman, associate Dean of the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory (Toronto).
It is also important for the organizers of the Competition that at least one member of the Orchestra has a place on the jury: hence, several OSM musicians – such as cellist Guy Fouquet, violinists Richard Roberts, Anne Robert, Eugène Husaruk and Luis Grinhauz, violist Neal Gripp, flutists Timothy Hutchins and Denis Bluteau, bassoonist Stéphane Lévesque and horn player Jean Gaudreault – have made their contribution to the OSM Competition.
To take advantage of the presence of visiting judges from Canada and from abroad, since 2002 Competition organizers have arranged master classes, an extension of the OSM's educational mission, that are open to young artists studying in Québec institutions. Thus, not only do participants in the OSM Competition benefit from the wisdom of these seasoned artists, but so do students from around the province and the public as well.
Research and editorial collaboration:
Lyette Ainey, musicologist
