Former CCA President receives GG’s Award

Ottawa , Sep­tem­ber 22, 2004 — A past pres­i­dent of the CCA’s Board of Gov­er­nors Jean-Louis Roux will be pre­sented with a Gov­er­nor General’s Per­form­ing Arts Award at a cer­e­mony at Rideau Hall on Novem­ber 5 2004 .

Roux is a dynamic fig­ure in Canada ‘s the­atre com­mu­nity. He has per­formed more than 150 roles on stage and more than 50 more on tele­vi­sion. He has writ­ten two plays and adapted into French more than twenty clas­sic works by the likes of William Shake­speare and Ten­nessee Williams. This win­ter, he will appear on the National Arts Centre’s stage in a French adap­ta­tion of Franz Kafka’s The Trial .

In addi­tion to his time as head of the CCA Board of Gov­er­nors from 1968 to 1970, Jean-Louis Roux has served as pres­i­dent of the Société des auteurs and of the Cen­tre cana­dien du théâtre, and as Direc­tor Gen­eral of the National The­atre School of Canada. He recently con­cluded a five year tenure as Pres­i­dent of the Canada Coun­cil for the Arts. He was a mem­ber of the Sen­ate from 1994 to 1996, and Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Québec from 1996 to 1997. Roux was made a Com­pan­ion of the Order of Canada in 1987.

Win­ners of the Gov­er­nor General’s Per­form­ing Arts Award are pre­sented with a com­mem­o­ra­tive medal­lion and a $15,000 prize.   Other win­ners for this year include:

Kate and Anna McGar­rigle : One of Canada ‘s pre­em­i­nent folk acts, the McGar­rigle sis­ters came to promi­nance in 1975 when their song “Heart Like A Wheel” became an inter­na­tional hit for Linda Ron­stadt. That year, they recorded Kate & Anna McGar­rigle , an album that is still con­sid­ered a clas­sic of the genre. They have embraced their mixed anglophone-francophone her­itage in their music, record­ing in both lan­guages. The duo were appointed to the Order of Canada in 1993.

Gor­don Pin­sent : Pos­si­bly Canada’s most rec­og­niz­able screen actor, the Grand Falls, New­found­land native has appeared in dozens of films and tele­vi­sion shows over his 40-plus year career, includ­ing the orig­i­nal 1969 ver­sion of The Thomas Crown Affair , the blax­ploita­tion clas­sic Blac­ula , and the 2001 adap­ta­tion of E. Annie Proulx’s The Ship­ping News . Through the 1990’s, Pin­sent was a fix­ture on Cana­dian tele­vi­sion, appear­ing in “Due South”, “The Red Green Show”, “Power Play” and “Wind at My Back”.

Pin­sent has received five Gem­ini Awards for his tele­vi­sion work, and three Genie awards for film, includ­ing one for his per­for­mance in the 1972 clas­sic The Row­dy­man , which he also wrote. He has recieved ACTRA’s Life­time Achieve­ment Award and was named a Com­pan­ion of the Order of Canada in 1998.

Joseph Rouleau : An internationally-renowned opera singer, Joseph Rouleau has per­formed some of the most cel­e­brated roles in opera, includ­ing Basilio in The Bar­ber of Seville and Mephistophe­les in Faust . Dur­ing his dis­tin­guished career, he has shared the stage with the likes of Pavarotti and Maria Callas. Rouleau has also worked hard to pro­mote musi­cal arts in Canada . He served as Pres­i­dent of the Board of Gov­er­nors of Jeunesses Musi­cales du Canada, and helped found the Orchestre Mét­ro­pol­i­tain du Grand Mon­tréal and the Opéra de Mon­tréal, as well as help­ing to estab­lish the Cen­tre Pierre-Péladeau. He was named an offi­cer of the Order of Canada in 1977.

Veron­ica Ten­nant : One of the National Bal­let of Canada’s most cel­e­brated prima bal­leri­nas, the British-born Tennant’s dance career spanned 25 years. She per­formed in many of the clas­sics with the likes of Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Barysh­nikov. After her retire­ment from the stage in 1989, she shifted grace­fully into the role of a tele­vi­sion pro­ducer, earn­ing an Inter­na­tional Emmy Award for   the 1997 pro­duc­tion Karen Kain: Danc­ing in the Moment . Ear­lier this year, Ten­nant was pro­moted to Com­pan­ion of the Order of Canada .

Eric Till : A pro­lific film and tele­vi­sion direc­tor with a taste for bio­graph­i­cal mate­r­ial, Till has helmed some of this country’s most famous pro­duc­tions, includ­ing the 1977 TV biopic Bethune , and the 1982 feel-good film If You Could See What I Hear . His tele­vi­sion cred­its run the gamut from the Amer­i­can clas­sic “The Streets of San Fran­cisco”, to the fam­ily favourite “Frag­gle Rock”, to “To Catch a Killer”, the story of the cap­ture of ser­ial killer John Wayne Gacy. His recent work includes direct­ing the 2002 Red Green film Duct Tape For­ever , and 2003’s Luther , a biog­ra­phy of Mar­tin Luther.

Two other awards were also announced. The Ramon John Hnatyshyn Award for Vol­un­tarism in the Per­form­ing Arts will be given to Con­stance Pathy , a dri­ving force in the cul­tural com­mu­nity who has served on the board of Les Grands Bal­lets Cana­di­ens de Mon­tréal, for the past 15 years as President.

The National Arts Cen­tre Award will be pre­sented to satirist Rick Mer­cer. The acclaimed writer and per­former has estab­lished him­self as one of Canada’s fore­most comedic voices, through his writ­ing and per­form­ing on “This Hour Has 22 Min­utes”, “Made In Canada” and his new show, “Mon­day Report”. His spe­cial “Rick Mercer’s Talk­ing to Amer­i­cans” is the highest-rated com­edy spe­cial in Cana­dian tele­vi­sion history.

After receiv­ing their awards, the lau­re­ates will be cel­e­brated at the 2004 Awards Gala at the National Arts Cen­tre in Ottawa on Novem­ber 6 2004 . The gala will air on Radio-Canada on Sun­day Decem­ber 26 2004 , at 8:00p.m and on CBC Tele­vi­sion on Thurs­day, Decem­ber 30 at 8:00p.m.

New Head for CRIA

After 30 years as Pres­i­dent of the Cana­dian Record­ing Indus­try Asso­ci­a­tion (CRIA) Brian Robert­son has annouced his depar­ture from the orga­ni­za­tion in mid-November.   Robert­son will be suc­ceeded by music indus­try lawyer Gra­ham Hen­der­son , the for­mer Senior Vice-President of Busi­ness Affairs and eCom­merce at Uni­ver­sal Music Canada . Hen­der­son was instru­men­tal in launch­ing Canada ‘s first legal down­load site Puretracks.com in 2003, and has rep­re­sented Cana­dian per­form­ers such as Loreena McKen­nitt, The North­ern Pikes, The Pur­suit of Hap­pi­ness, as well as True North Records.