Photo by Brad Ardley

2019 JUNOs Video Interview: Elisapie

Story by Eric Parazelli | Friday March 29th, 2019

Saluit, Nunavik-born Québécoise Elisapie was nominated in the Indigenous Music Album of the Year category at the 2019 JUNO Awards in London, Ontario. We met with her on the red carpet to discuss her participation in the SOCAN Songwriters’ Circle, where she shared the stage with the illustrious David Foster, among others. We also asked about her reaction to the very positive international reception of her recent album The Ballad of the Runaway Girl, and how she manages her career and family life – now that she’s a mother of three.

Photo by Brad Ardley. Left to right/De gauche à droite : Graeme Cornies, SOCAN's Eric Baptiste de la SOCAN, Brian Pickett, James Chapple.

SOCAN reception celebrates #ComposersWhoScore during 2019 Canadian Screen Awards week

Story by Howard Druckman | Friday March 29th, 2019

Phil Strong, Laurel MacDonald

Phil Strong, Laurel MacDonald

SOCAN celebrated our #ComposersWhoScore nominated, as well as some early winners, in the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards, with a dinner at the Sassafraz restaurant in downtown Toronto, on March 28, 2019.

Attending SOCAN-member nominees included nominees Ari Posner, Rob Carli, Mark Korven, Laurel MacDonald and Phil Strong of Improbable Music, Greg Fisher of Fish-Fry Music and Sound, as well early winners Darren Fung and three of Voodoo Highway’s four members: James Chapple, Graeme Cornies, and Brian Pickett. To check the work for which they’re all nominated or honoured, click here.

We also presented a No. 1 Award to Andrew Lockington – one of our most honoured and successful #ComposersWhoScore – for his work on the movie Rampage, which reached the top of the North American box office on April 13-15, 2018, grossing $34.5 million in its opening weekend. Attending with Lockington was Neil Parfitt, who works closely with him as a sound engineer, and who was himself nominee. The duo has just returned from a trip to Japan, where they were capturing sounds for a project to be released on Netflix.

“The work of our #ComposersWhoScore is essential for SOCAN,” said SOCAN CEO Eric Baptiste. “In 2018 we collected almost $375 million in revenue, and a large and important part of that is for screen composers.”

In addition to Baptiste, SOCAN attendees included SOCAN Board of Directors President and Chair Marc Ouellette, Rodney Murphy, Michael McCarty, Paul Stillo, Gary Laranja, and Daryl Hamilton, as well as The SOCAN Foundation’s Charlie Wall-Andrews. Also attending were past SOCAN Board President Stan Meissner, Glenn Morley of the Screen Composers Guild of Canada, and SOCAN Board of Directors member Ed Henderson.

SOCAN, No. 1 Song Award, Michael McCarty. Andrew Lockington, Eric Baptiste, Daryl Hamilton

SOCAN No. 1 Award. Left to right: Michael McCarty (SOCAN), Andrew Lockington, Eric Baptiste (SOCAN), Daryl Hamilton (SOCAN).

Photo by Frédérique Ménard-Aubin

Jean-Pierre Ferland honoured

Story by Eric Parazelli | Thursday March 28th, 2019

The Polaris Music Prize honoured legendary Québecois singer-songwriter and SOCAN member Jean-Pierre Ferland during a ceremony that was held on Monday, Mar. 25, 2019, in the offices of Éditorial Avenue and Audiogram, in Montréal. Ferland’s album Jaune, released in 1970, was awarded the Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Music Prize.

The Heritage Prize recipient is determined by a panel of experts composed of music journalists and historians.

Ferland was accompanied by his partner Julie-Anne Saumur, and Michel Robidoux, a close collaborator in the creation of Jaune. They were presented with a framed poster of the album’s cover by Claire Dagenais, events director for the Polaris Prize; Magali Ould, the Prize publicist in Québec; and SOCAN’s Geneviève Côté, who also sits on the Polaris Music Prize Board of Directors. The poster was created by illustrator Estée Preda.

“I’m very touched by this prize, especially since it’s awarded to me from outside of my Québec,” said Ferland. “It’s deeply moving to think that this album still resonates over 50 years after we created it. I thank the Slaight family for this pan-Canadian recognition, it is a beautiful gesture.”

Considered by the jury as a major milestone of Québec musical history, Jaune was recorded with a plethora of remarkable American studio musicians who, according to Ferland, helped shape its reception in a musical landscape that was undergoing deep changes, as was the world in general. Ferland has recorded more than 30 albums, received the Order of Canada, and was made a Knight of the Ordre national du Québec.

Jaune is one of eight albums that received the 2018 Heritage Music Prize. The other honourees are:

Broken Social Scene — You Forgot It in People
Bruce Cockburn — Stealing Fire
Dream Warriors — And Now the Legacy Begins
Kid Koala — Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Alanis Morissette — Jagged Little Pill
RUSH — 2112
Neil Young — Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

The Slaight Family Polaris Heritage Prize honours Canadian albums of the past released during four distinct periods: 1960–1975, 1976–1985, 1986–1995, and 1996-2005. The winners and finalists are judged solely on artistic value, regardless of musical genre, or sales considerations.