BMO 1st Art! Exhibition, Toronto
On Oct. 1, the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MoCCA) played host to the 12th annual BMO 1st Art! Exhibition, a showcase for the work of the one national and 12 regional winners of the BMO 1st Art! Invitational Student Art Competition. The contest celebrates the creative work of Canadian art students and gives much-needed funds and publicity to emerging talent across the country. This year’s top winner, University of Guelph student Samuel de Lange, took home $10,000 for his chromogenic print titled PVTREFACTIO VI (Black Sun). Gen-next talent mixed with notable names in the realm of Canadian finance and art including BMO’s Gilles Ouellette and MoCCA board chair Julia Ouellette, Luminato Festival artistic director Jörn Weisbrodt, gallerists Manny Neubacher and Olga Korper, BMO Financial Group collection curator Dawn Cain, MoCCA curator David Liss and the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria’s Michelle Jacques. The exhibition runs through Sunday at MoCCA in Toronto.
Barbara Dirks. Photos by Tom Sandler courtesy of BMO
BMO 1st Art! national champion Samuel de Lange with his winning work.
From left, Neubacher Shor Contemporary director Manny Neubacher with Henry Brenzel.
From left, regional winners Amy Wells of PEI , Brandon Sieber of Saskatchewan and Adrienna Matzeg of Nova Scotia.
From left, Luminato Festival artistic director Jörn Weisbrodt and Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art curator David Liss.
Gilles Ouellette of BMO and Julia Ouellette, MoCC A’s board chair.
Olga Korper of Olga Korper Gallery.
MacKenzie Art Gallery CEO and 1st Art! 2014 Selection Committee member Anthony Kiendl with Michelle Jacques of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
NAC Gala, Ottawa
The National Arts Centre Gala, the lavish Ottawa fundraiser now in its 18th year, welcomed a well-heeled crowd for an evening of orchestral performance by talent both familiar and new. Maestro Pinchas Zukerman conducted the National Arts Centre Orchestra and treated guests to solo performances on violin and viola with virtuoso Itzhak Perlman later joining on violin. The orchestra contained a crop of former NAC Summer Music Institute students including 14-year-old violin prodigy Diana Adamyan, who helped perform a moving tribute to their teacher and mentor (Zuckerman will give up his role of music director at NACO in 2015, to be succeeded by British conductor Alexander Shelley).The SMI, a young-artist training program founded by Zukerman in 1999, is a beneficiary of the National Youth and Education Trust. “The evening was a tribute to Pinchas’s extraordinary legacy in championing young-artist training and arts education; our generous patrons and sponsors helped raise more than $917,000 for the National Youth and Education Trust,” NAC Foundation CEO Jayne Watson said later. Post-performance, a small crowd of supporters and dignitaries including Honourary Gala Chair Laureen Harper and Chair Carol Devenny, Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, National Defence Minister Rob Nicholson, former cabinet minister Stockwell Day (who returned as charity auctioneer), Kimberley Bozak and Philip Deck, Gail Asper, new Shaw Media president Barbara Williams and Ottawa Senators president Cyril Leeder assembled for an intimate dinner on the Southam Hall stage planned by NAC executive chef John Morris.
Thomas Mulcair, Leader of the Offical Opposition, is flanked by wife Catherine Pinhas (left) and NAC Director of Communications Rosemary Thompson. Photos courtesy of the National Arts Centre
Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman (both at left) take a bow with the evening’s other performers.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and her husband, Frank McArdle.
National Defence Minister Rob Nicholson and his wife, Arlene.
From left, NACO principle cellist Amanda Forsyth, her husband Pinchas Zukerman, NAC CEO and president Peter Herrndorf and NAC Board of Trustees vice-chair Adrian Burns.