Linda Bouchard named a 2028 Azrieli Music Prizes laureate!

The Latitude 45 team is delighted to inform you that composer Linda Bouchard has been awarded the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music from the 2028 Azrieli Music Prizes!

The Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music is offered to a Canadian composer to create a new musical work that engages with the complexities of composing in Canada today. 2028 Laureate Linda Bouchard’s proposed work, Le Saguenay, Saki-nip, will be a 15-minute continuous composition scored for a 15-player instrumental ensemble. The work will paint a portrait of the majestic Saguenay Fjords, the composer’s own family history in the region, and a crucial period in the history of French Canada. Inspired by early encounters between Innu communities and French explorers, expansive ensemble textures and intimate contrapuntal string dialogues will sonically connect the past and the present, and the personal with the universal.

During Linda Bouchard’s fifty-year musical career, she has been a composer, conductor, orchestrator, producer, researcher and mentor. She has spent her professional life between New York, California and Canada, but always returning to Montréal as her home port. Her works have been recorded by the CBC, Analekta, ECM and Bang on a Can, among others. Bouchard is the recipient of the Composer of the Year Award from the Conseil québécois de la musique, and she has served as composer-in-residence with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

The Azrieli Music, Arts and Culture Centre (AMACC) named three outstanding composers as the 2028 Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) Laureates. Congratulations to Luis Arias, who won the Azrieli Commission for International Music; Linda Bouchard, who was awarded the Azrieli Commission for Canadian Music; and

Mathew Rosenblum, who received the Azrieli Commission for Jewish Music. Each AMP competition cycle focuses on a specific instrumentation category; the 2028 works will be composed for a chamber ensemble of up to 15 musicians with optional soloists.

Offering the most substantial awards of its kind in Canada, AMP has become one of the most significant composition competitions in the world. Each laureate receives a prize package valued at over CAD 250,000, including a cash award of CAD 50,000; a performance of their work by the Prizes’ Performance Partner, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne (Le NEM), at the AMP Gala Concert in Autumn 2028; two subsequent international performances; and a commercial studio recording of their prize-winning work, also featuring Le NEM.

Created in 2014 by Sharon Azrieli C.Q., D.Mus for the Azrieli Foundation, the biennial Azrieli Music Prizes (AMP) identify and support composers of distinction, giving them the resources, platform and reach to create music of enduring value. Open to the international music community, AMP accepts nominations for works from individuals and institutions of all ages, nationalities, faiths and genders, which are then submitted to its expert juries through an open call for scores and proposals.