Celebrating Harry Freedman
Today we celebrate the 100th birthday of CMC Associate Composer Harry Freedman!
“Harry Freedman is one of Canada’s most frequently performed composers and founding member of the Canadian League of Composers. His over 200 compositions for a vast array of ensembles, voices and genres, are performed internationally and has been commissioned by some of the most prolific Canadian arts organizations. Named an Officer of the Order of Canada, Freedman was awarded the Lynch-Staunton Award in 1998 by the Canada Council for outstanding achievement by a Canadian artist.
As a dear friend and colleague, educator and jazz icon Phil Nimmons remembers Harry’s passion for Canadian music; “We both felt that we wanted to have more Canadian music, more Canadian music played by symphony orchestras. Harry was dedicated and committed to Canadian music. He is an important legacy for music in Canada.”
The CMC houses over 175 compositions by Freeman and highlighted his recorded compositions in a 2017 Composers Portrait highlight available on Centrediscs.
We celebrate the legacy Harry Freedman left behind for Canadian music and beyond.
Reflections from Friends:
“Harry was the first person I met when I came to Toronto in the late 40s. We were kindred spirits, almost like brothers. Harry had a great sense of humour and an inspiring laugh. He introduced me to Oscar (Peterson). And that was the beginning of another great friendship.
Harry was very exacting in his pursuit of composition. If he had some sounds in his head, maybe a tone row, he would spend hours playing it and listening to it intensely. He was very detailed, very precise, and pursued clarity in his writing. We both shared thinking about “listening” to all styles of music, anything, and to really listen to it. Let it develop in your head. The longer you listen, other things grow out of it.
We both felt that we wanted to have more Canadian music, more Canadian music played by symphony orchestras. Harry was dedicated and committed to Canadian music. He is an important legacy for music in Canada.”
“Being a recipient of the Harry Freedman Recording Award has been such a tremendous honour. I still remember when I got the call from then Ontario Regional Director Matthew Fava, who relayed the news. My piece toile de jouy for solo harpsichord was written for Wesley Shen, someone who I have had a close musical friendship with for over a decade. It was through the award that I was able to (virtually) get into a proper studio with an amazing team including Paul Talbott and Chris Thornborrow to record the work. The award was also the first bit of funding that came through to make my debut album and was a tremendous boost to the project of my upcoming album Textile Fantasies.”
“I was fortunate to meet Harry on serval occasions as an emerging composer in Toronto. One of my fondest memories of Harry was visiting with at an intermission at the presentation of the 2004 [CMC Ontario] Toronto Emerging Composer Award, which I had just been awarded. We mused about what it meant to be an emerging composer. Harry confided in me that he still considered himself to be an emerging composer at the age of 82. Harry showed us that the creative mind is always emerging: There is always something new to learn, something new to hear, and something new to compose. Happy 100th Harry!”
2022 Harry Freedman Award Winner – Bekah Simms
The Canadian Music Centre (CMC) and the Freedman family are pleased to announce that CMC Associate Composer Bekah Simms has won the 2022 Harry Freedman Recording Award for her piece metamold.
The Harry Freedman Recording Award was established in 2010 by the Freedman family to honour this leading figure in Canadian composition. The Award supports creative costs associated with making audio recordings for a selected Canadian composer’s music. Offered every other year, the Award is the primary activity of the Harry Freedman Fund, a permanent endowment administered by the Canadian Music Centre and managed by the Ontario Arts Foundation.
On behalf of the Jury:
“I had the pleasure of facilitating my first jury for the Harry Freedman Award this year. We were all impressed by the quality of submissions, wishing we had more than one award to bestow on the very deserving candidates. I can speak on behalf of the jury that we all enjoyed getting to know the varied and excellent music from all the candidates from across the country.
For me, there is something very fitting about Bekah winning this award. Both Bekah and Harry share a deep engagement with multiple types of music that have been integrated into a deeply personal style. Both composers also engage with the technologies available to them: radio and film for Freedman, studio recording and the internet for Simms. Both composers make a compelling argument for the place of composition within broader Canadian culture both at home and abroad. We are all excited to listen to the release that will come from this award!” –Joseph Glaser, CMC Ontario Interim Regional Director
Bekah Simms, 2022 Harry Freedman Award winner:
“As a composer whose ideal environment is the recording studio, the opportunity afforded through the Harry Freedman Award to record my work “metamold” with Crash Ensemble is a momentous one. The award allows me to fully cement my first collaboration with Irish supergroup Crash, an ongoing relationship stemming from their premiere of this piece during New Music Dublin 2021. Like most of my music, “metamold” is really envisioned with the studio in mind: close-miking, complete balance control between hugely disparate musical elements, and popular music production. These things combined with Crash’s superb craftsmanship will allow this piece, and our artistic relationship, to really sparkle!
“metamold” utilizes previously performed and recorded music from its three commissioning ensembles (Crash, Eighth Blackbird, and New York New Music Ensemble) in its electronics, particularly previous studio recordings from Crash. To studio record Crash’s performance of this work, which is based so heavily on studio recordings of Crash, is an appropriately meta culmination of this collaboration that I’m so grateful for.” –Bekah Simms, CMC Associate Composer
JUNO and Gaudeamus Award-nominee Bekah Simms is a Toronto-based composer whose varied acoustic and electroacoustic output has been described as “cacophonous, jarring, oppressive — and totally engrossing!” (CBC Music) and lauded for its “sheer range of ingenious material, expressive range and sonic complexity” (The Journal of Music.) Foremost among her current compositional interests is quotation and the friction between recognizability and complete obfuscation, resulting in nervous, messy, and frequently heavy musical landscapes. Recent interests in just intonation and virtual instruments have resulted in increasingly lush and strange harmonic environments.
Bekah is the recipient of over 30 awards and prizes, including the 2019 Barlow Prize. Her music has been widely performed across Canada, the United States, and Europe, and interpreted by a diverse range of top-tier performers from soloists to symphony orchestras. She holds a D.M.A. in music composition from the University of Toronto, where she currently teaches Applied Composition.
For more information on the 2022 Harry Freedman Award click here
Coming Soon:
- CMC Ontario Interim Director Joseph Glaser interviews Bekah Simms
- Articles of remembrance and a tribute from past Board Chair, colleague and friend, David Jaeger
- Performance of Bright Angels by Xin Wang and Rob McDonald (April 22nd or 30th)
