Alanis Obomsawin to Receive the MacDowell Medal
April 5, 2023
The Glenn Gould Foundation is delighted to congratulate Alanis Obomsawin for her recent winning of the MacDowell Medal.
Everyone associated with the foundation will know that Alanis was the 13th laureate of the Glenn Gould Prize.
A member of the Abenaki Nation, Alanis was born in 1932 in Lebanon, New Hampshire, and was raised on the Odanak (Québec) reserve from the age of six months.
In 1960 she made her professional debut as a singer-songwriter at Town Hall in New York, where Glenn Gould played his New York debut in 1955.
Alanis has single-handedly changed the way the world appreciates Indigenous film-making.
Over the course of her distinguished career she has made more than 50 films for the National Film Board of Canada, including Kanehsatake: 270 Years of Resistance, and Wabanake: People From Where the Sun Rises. She is also a prolific and compelling visual artist, known especially for her engravings and prints, which she exhibits internationally.
She has received many awards and honors, including the Companion of the Order of Canada (Canada’s highest civilian honor), the Governor General’s Award in Media Arts, and of course in 2020 she was awarded the $100,000 Glenn Gould Prize, selected by a distinguished jury chaired by multi-media artist, composer, and director Laurie Anderson.
The MacDowell Medal is named for seminal American composer Edward MacDowell (1860-1908), who played a pivotal role in advancing classical composition in the US. MacDowell paved the way towards a more authentically American style of composition in subsequent generations by the likes of Aaron Copland, Henry Cowell, Virgil Thomson, Charles Ives, Samuel Barber, and Leonard Bernstein. Towards the end of his live, MacDowell and his wife, pianist Marian MacDowell, bequeathed his summer home, Hillcrest Farm in New Hampshire to create an artist residency community, which continues to this day. The MacDowell Medal was established by the community in 1960.
The medal has been given since 1960 to one person annually who has made an outstanding contribution to American culture and arts. Previous winners have included Robert Frost, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Alice Munro, and Tony Morrison.
Alanis, The Glenn Gould Foundation sends you our heartfelt congratulations, with all our love and respect.
