Everything Already Lost, my song cycle for baritone and piano, has won first prize at the 2021 Art Song Composition Award from the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), based in the States. You can read the official NATS announcement here.

As Canadian Art Song Project noted, I am the first Canadian to win this international competition. Other recent Canadian prize winners include Zachary Wadsworth‘s Parlo(u)r Songs (2nd Place, 2019) and Tawnie Olson‘s Three Songs on Poems by Lorri Neilsen Glenn (2nd Place, 2018). My own Miss Carr in Seven Scenes, commissioned by CASP, was a finalist in the 2019 competition.

Everything Already Lost was commissioned by Tyler Duncan and Erika Switzer, to poetry by Jan Zwicky, with financial support from the SOCAN Foundation and the estate of Dr. Steen Olaf Welding, in whose memory the piece is dedicated.

Vancouver’s Music on Main graciously offered to present the premiere performance and scheduled it for November 2020. But COVID-19 thought differently. As it did for so much of the arts… So instead, Music on Main produced a gorgeous concert video, filmed in the lobby of the Chan Centre at the University of British Columbia. As the cycle was meant to evoke nature and BC, the backdrop could not have been more perfect. In addition, Music on Main filmed extensive interviews with Tyler, Erika, and me, and included excerpts as part of the concert video and in short preview videos. I’m so grateful to everyone at Music on Main and the film and audio crew for capturing this piece so beautifully, and to Tyler, Erika, and Jan for giving me so much inspiration.

Please enjoy this video series!