Canada Was Celebrating Its Year While Artist Get Disappointed On The Middle Of Awarding Session

Canada is celebrating its 150th birthday year and took place at Ottawa City Hall the celebration included a lighting of a spectacular cauldron in Marion Dewar Plaza. Events and activities will be presented in the capital throughout 2017, a year that marks both Canada's and CIBC's 150th anniversaries.

The events was a competition to compose a piece of celebratory music that is to be played on Ottawa's Peace Tower carillon and the problem arises in the middle of awarding session, claimed by Ottawa 2017. The office of the Speaker of the House of Commons award money is only $800 award for the winner which caused disappointments to the artists.

It takes hours of work and a lot of professional expertise to compose a few minute of decent music plus the minimum payment set by the Canadian League of Composers. It took $425 a minute for one instrument and $790 for a full orchestra thus the price of making a five-minute song is very expensive which is worth at least $2,125, according to The Globe and Mail.

After many negotiations Montreal composer Simon Bertrand, who organized an online petition requesting the award be raised.  The contest rules have changed so that at least the winning composer retains the copyright to the composition but failed in the raising of the award money.

The Speaker's tries to compensate by saying that the money is not important but the artist's honor which is disrespectful in an era. When artists in general, and musicians in particular, are battling to get a public understanding of their right to be paid it was very disappointing for musicians creating music is what composers do for a living.  The thing that the artists does not like is the government does have the budget for prize money but the House of Commons seems to think they can just hold a contest and toss out useless ribbons. 

TagsCanada's 150th Birthday, Ottawa City Hall, Simon Bertrand, Canada and CIBC's 150th anniversaries, Musical Artist, Artist Rally, Canadian League of Composers