LePage Receives Glenn Gould Award

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Robert Lepage (KÀ / Totem) received only the 10th Glenn Gould Award that’s been handed out. The prize is dubbed the “Nobel Prize of the Arts.” The winner gets $50,000 Cdn and a statue designed by Canadian artist Ruth Abernethy, who is the sculptor behind the Oscar Peterson bronze outside the National Arts Centre on Elgin Street. Lepage joins luminaries such as Leonard Cohen (2011), Dr. José Antonio Abreu (2008), the founder of El Sistema, Venezuela’s free music education program for children and youth, Pierre Boulez (2002), Yo-Yo Ma (1999), Oscar Peterson (1993) and Yehudi Menuhin (1990).

On Monday at Rideau Hall, Lepage received his award. He was fêted by Gov. Gen. David Johnston and other dignitaries, then honoured with a string of performances, one of which included an excerpt from KÀ, one of the Cirque du Soleil shows Lepage helped create. The other is Totem.

“The great advantage of the circus and the reason it is so popular is really the ideal combination of art and sport,” Lepage says. It’s the ideal art form in a certain way if you want to be accessible.”

The Gould Prize is given every few years to an individual who “has enriched the human condition through the arts.”

Lepage called the award humbling.

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{ SOURCE: Ottawa Citizen | http://goo.gl/GHS63M }