Robert Lepage
Tenth Laureate of the Glenn Gould Prize
Theatrical revolutionary and technological visionary.
Biography
Robert Lepage is renowned for his creative and original approach to theatre and opera, using new technologies to shake classical stage direction to its foundations. The Quebec-born artist began his career as an actor, author and director gaining international recognition early on with The Dragons’ Trilogy in 1985, quickly followed by Vinci, Polygraph and Tectonic Plates.
In 1994 he founded Ex Machina, his multidisciplinary production company, and under his artistic direction, this new team produced a steady output of plays including The Seven Streams of the River Ota, Geometry of Miracles, The Far Side of The Moon, The Andersen Project and Lipsynch.
His operatic achievements include thrilling productions of the double-bill of Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung, The Damnation of Faust, 1984, The Rake’s Progress, Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Metropolitan Opera, The Nightingale and Other Short Fables with the Canadian Opera Company, and The Tempest. He has worked with leading opera producers in France, Spain and Japan.
It is a good thing to celebrate excellence but I do think it is important to define what “excellence” is. For me, the excellence of an artist should not be measured only by his successes and achievements but also by his courage and capacity to constantly put himself in danger. Trial, error and at times even public humiliation are as much part of the process of defining one’s uniqueness. It means surviving both the highs of being ahead of the curve and the defeated feeling of trailing behind…I am deeply honoured by this prestigious and generous accolade. As I know Glenn Gould did, I believe there is such a thing as a culture of the North and as I was walking to work this morning trying to fight my way through the heavy blizzard that had invaded my fair city, I could somewhat sense his presence in the howling wind and the vanishing footsteps I was clumsily following in the snow.
— Robert Lepage
Related
Governor General to award tenth Glenn Gould Prize to Robert Lepage
The protégé
Founded in Quebec City in 2002, L’orchestre d’hommes-orchestres is an artist run collective led by Bruno Bouchard, Gabrielle Bouthillier, Jasmin Cloutier, Simon Drouin, Simon Elmaleh and Danya Ortmann. The figure of the one-man band is emblematic of their philosophy in which the musician truly “struggles with his instrument” to create “visual music”. LODHO made its mark in 2005 with Performs Tom Waits, a production that manifests the group’s unique and iconoclastic artistic approach. It has been presented to great acclaim more than 150 times at major festivals and venues in Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Ecuador, Luxembourg, Finland, Ireland, Germany and Canada. LODHO has created and toured seven other original works including three pieces for the stage and four street performances using antique trucks.
Finding yourself out of your comfort zone is something extremely stimulating – that’s exactly what L’orchestre d’hommes-orchestres does for you. Somewhere between music, poetry and visual performance, they create their own art form and you suddenly find yourself treading territories you never knew existed. They turn the ordinary into extraordinary, the expected into the unexpected, and noise into harmony. They are truly unique.
Robert Lepage
We are very honoured by the recognition Robert Lepage has shown towards our work by choosing us for this prize. The support of an artist whose achievements are so significant, makes us all the prouder of the artistic posture we’ve been advocating for 12 years: un-discipline, anonymity, confusion between current arts and popular cultures. So it is a great privilege to be rewarded for having followed all those invisible strings and created all these imperfect forms. We want to share this award with all the people who have joined us, in a variety of ways, over time. LODHO is the meeting of a few people who have chosen to compose with a chaos of fertile contradictions, where the role distribution shifts and where we rarely find ourselves where we thought we would be. And today, we are here.
LODHO
The Tenth Prize Jury
Bob Ezrin
Canada / U.S.A.
In an illustrious career as a music and entertainment producer that has spanned over 40 years, Toronto-born Royal Conservatory alumnus Bob Ezrin has worked in all genres and media with many of the world’s most important contemporary artists including: Pink Floyd, Alice Cooper, U2, Peter Gabriel, Deep Purple, Lang Lang, Jay-Z, Taylor Swift, K’naan, will.i.am, Zucchero, The Canadian Tenors, Green Day, Elton John, Fefe Dobson, Lou Reed, Rod Stewart and many others.
He has produced numerous major events including the re-opening of the SuperDome after Katrina and Pete Seeger’s 90th Birthday Concert at Madison Square Garden.
He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in April, 2004, and into the Canadian Music Industry Hall of Fame in March, 2006 and in 2013 has been named a Fellow of the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Deepa Mehta
Canada
Deepa Mehta is a transnational, Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and director whose work is known for its honesty, beauty and universality. Her award-winning films have played at every major film festival and have been distributed worldwide. The daughter of a film distributor, Ms Mehta was born and educated in India before immigrating to Canada in 1973.
John Ralston Saul
Canada
An award-winning essayist and novelist, John Ralston Saul has had a growing impact on political and economic thought in many countries. Declared a “prophet” by TIME magazine, his fourteen works include his philosophical trilogy: Voltaire’s Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West, The Doubter’s Companion: A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense and The Unconscious Civilization. They have been translated into more than twenty languages in over thirty countries. He has received many national and international awards for his writing, such as Chile’s Pablo Neruda Medal, South Korea’s Manhae Prize, and the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction Literature, for Unconscious Civilization. A long-time champion of freedom of expression, he was re-elected to a second term as President of PEN International in October 2012.
Patti Smith
U.S.A.
In 1975, rock and roll caught a glimpse of what lay ahead when Patti Smith—a bohemian New York poet and punk-rock artiste—released her debut album, Horses. Its inspired garage-band amateurism flew in the face of increasingly slick rock production values. Smith’s lyrics were street poetry that nodded toward Beat Generation and French symbolist poets, as well as literate rockers like Jim Morrison and Lou Reed.
Horses arrived at a time when rock and roll needed a jolt from its unadventurous rut and upwardly mobile arena-rock pretensions. The musicians proudly flaunted a garage-rock aesthetic, while Smith sang with the delirious release of an inspired amateur who knew her voice conveyed more honest passion than any note-perfect rock professional.
Sir David Tang
Hong Kong
Sir David Tang has been for over 20 years the exclusive distributor of all Cuban cigars for Canada, Asia, Australia and the South Pacific. He also founded the internet company ICorrect in 2011. He was director and advisor to international companies, including Blackstone, Tommy Hilfiger, the Savoy Group of Hotels, and British Airways.
In Hong Kong, he was Founding Chairman of the Hong Kong Cancer Fund and Hong Kong Down Syndrome Association. He is also Patron to the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation and President of the Hong Kong Branches of Royal Commonwealth Society and Royal Geographical Society.
He is also adviser to the London Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra, and President of the London Bach Society.
Rolando Villazón
Mexico / France
Through his uniquely compelling performances with leading opera houses and orchestras around the world, Rolando Villazón has firmly established himself as one of the music world’s most critically acclaimed and beloved stars and as one of the leading tenors of our day. His recent portrayal of Massenet’s Werther was dubbed “nothing short of magnificent” and prompted The Guardian to write: “Villazón gives one of his most remarkable performances to date. His artistry is as astonishing as ever, fusing sound, sense and gesture in an uncompromising quest for veracity.”
Paul Hoffert
United States
Paul Hoffert is Chair of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund, Fine Arts Professor at York University, and Chair of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers. He is former President of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, Faculty Fellow at Harvard University Law School, and Chair of the Ontario Arts Council. Hoffert has parallel achievements in science and technology. He directed Intercom Ontario, a $100 million trial of the world’s first broadband-connected community that landed him on the cover of the Financial Post and in the Wall Street Journal.
He has authored best-selling books: “The New Client”, “All Together Now”, and “The Bagel Effect” and a recent textbook on composing music for videogames.
In 2001, Hoffert received the Pixel award as the new media industry’s “Visionary of the Year” and in 2005 he received the Order of Canada.