Apply now for inaugural $10,000 Henry Armstrong Award

Story by Howard Druckman | Tuesday April 19th, 2022

Indigenous music creators in Canada are invited to apply now for the inaugural Henry Armstrong Award, designed to support First Nations, Métis, and Inuit musicians. The deadline is May 13, 2022, and those interested can find the eligibility rules here, and apply here.

The newly launched bursary is named for MDM Recordings Inc. president and founder Mike Denney’s grandfather Lloyd Henry and mother Gloria Denney (née Armstrong), both fellow Six Nations Lower Mohawk. The genesis for the Award began in the Spring of 2021, following the initial uncovering of the 215 Indigenous children in the Kamloops Residential School mass grave. Knowing he wanted to help, Denney called upon his fellow industry representatives and quickly put together a committee united in the goal of promoting inclusivity, equity, and equality in the Canadian Indigenous music space.

The Award is open to all Indigenous music artists across Canada. Following the application window, a juried selection process will begin via a committee of Canadian music industry professionals, culminating with the chosen act receiving a $10,000 bursary, along with a tailored mentorship program of professional development services.

Photo by courtesy / courtoisie

#ComposersWhoScore: 15 SOCAN members nominated for an Iris Award

Story by Eric Parazelli | Tuesday April 19th, 2022

On April 14, 2022, Québec Cinéma announced the list of nominees for its Iris Awards Gala, and 15 SOCAN #ComposersWhoScore are finalists in the Best Original Score and Best Original Score – Documentary categories.

The 2022 nominees in the Best Original Score category are:

  • Philippe Brault, for Maria Chapdelaine – Publishers: My T Fine Music, Item 7 Inc.
  • Philippe Brault, for Les oiseaux ivres – Publishers: Ho Tune Musique, Meloscope
  • Jean Martin and Tanya Tagaq, for Bootlegger
  • Éloi Painchaud and Fred Pellerin, for L’arracheuse de temps
  • Roger Tellier-Craig, for La contemplation du mystère

In the Best Original Score – Documentary category, the nominees are:

  • Samuel Laflamme and Dominique Fils-Aimée, for Seuls
  • Stéphane Lafleur and Christophe Lamarche-Ledoux, for Archipel
  • Robert Marcel Lepage, for Antisémitismes
  • Robert Marcel Lepage, for La coop de ma mère
  • Projet E.V.E., Michel Robidoux, and Bill Gagnon, for Les fils

Ivan Grbovic’s Les oiseaux ivres and Sébastien Pilote’s Maria Chapdelaine lead the number of nominations with 16 each. Other multiple nominees include Souterrain, directed by Sophie Dupuis, and Le Club Vinland, directed by Benoit Pilon, which are nominated 13 times. Beans, by Tracey Deer, Bootlegger, by Caroline Monnet, and Sin La Habana, by Kaveh Nabatian, have been nominated in 11, eight, and seven categories, respectively.

The 24th edition of the Gala Québec Cinéma will be broadcast live from Radio-Canada Studio 42 on Sunday, June 5, 2022, at 8:00 p.m. ET on ICI TÉLÉ. The Artisans Gala (during which the musical prizes will be awarded) will also return for a 7th edition in June (date and place to be confirmed), and will be hosted by the actor, filmmaker and screenwriter Guillaume Lambert.

For the full list of nominees of the 2022 Gala Québec Cinéma, visit the official website. Good luck to the nominees!

Photo by Kenneth Eke. Left to right / De gauche à droite : Mike Tanner, Music Sector Development Officer, City of Toronto / responsable du développement du secteur de la musique, Ville de Toronto; web developers / les développeurs web Natalja Chestopalova and/et Rudolf Olah; and Vanessa Thomas, SOCAN Vice President, Member & Industry Relations / vice-présidente des relations avec les membres et l’industrie de la SOCAN.

Natalja Chestopalova, Rudolf Olah win $3,000 first prize at 2022 Cue-Sheet-Palooza

Story by Howard Druckman, with files from / avec la collaboration de Luann Williams | Thursday April 14th, 2022

Natalja Chestopalova and Rudolf Olah have won the $3,000 first prize at the 2022 Cue-Sheet-Palooza event, held at a marathon 24-hour in-person session on April 9-10, 2022, in Toronto. The duo developed a CueConnect prototype that will help streamline the cue sheet process by which SOCAN members receive their royalties for on-screen music.

Cue sheets are lengthy documents that identify all of the music and its stakeholders in a particular screen production, in order to accurately distribute royalties; the process of using them has proven tedious and outdated. The Cue-Sheet-Palooza Hackathon, hosted by The Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC) and SOCAN, offered an opportunity for teams of developers to explore ways music creators and stakeholders can get paid their screen-based performance rights royalties faster and more precisely.  Our goal was to free up a music creator’s time to make music, not spend hours on administrative work in order to get paid.

Chestopalova, a Senior Researcher and Project Manager at OCAD University, and Olah, a Senior Software Developer and Tech Lead, developed the CueConnect prototype, which uses Dolby.io API  (application program interfaces) and SOCAN cue sheet submission API to improve critical functions related to data accuracy and process automation, addressing process redundancies, unnecessary repetition and manual re-entry of data, lack of transparency, and more. Essentially, they developed a user-friendly starting point for simplifying existing cue sheet processes.

Their suggestions for further developments include improving the machine learning capabilities of CueConnect; improving data/knowledge networks by making cue sheet data available through public APIs; adding timely notifications for users and stakeholders when cue sheets are submitted; and exploring blockchain compatibility, in terms of novel approaches to payment streamlining.

The winner of the $2,000 Second Prize was Cue Underflow, a.k.a.Gideon Moyo, while the Third Prize of $1,000 went to the Awesome Team, comprised of Dillan Hoyos and Leandro.

Partnering with the SCGC and SOCAN on the hackathon were the Canada Council for the Arts, the SOCAN Foundation, Music Publishers Canada (MPC), the City of Toronto, and Dolby.io.