Canadian Businesses Win Prestigious Arts Awards
September 18, 2002
A telecommunications giant, a micro-brewery and a bunch of lawyers are being honoured for their contributions to Canadian art. Aliant, Big Rock Brewery and the Manitoba Bar Association have won top awards in the annual competition for National Post Awards for Business in the Arts, presented in conjunction with The Council for Business and the Arts in Canada (CBAC). Alcan Primary Metal Group-British Columbia, Bank of Montreal, Catered Fare, RBC Financial Group and TrueNorth Energy will be honoured as well with Awards of Distinction.
"There are lots of awards in this country which celebrate artists, but these are the only ones that recognize their partners in the private sector who help get the work produced and seen," says Sarah Iley, President of the CBAC. "Our concern is that there just aren’t enough businesses that realize the critical role they can play in the creation of Canadian culture. By recognizing the most innovative, outstanding examples of arts and business partnerships each year, we hope to encourage others to get involved."
The Business in the Arts Awards recognize businesses that have formed remarkable partnerships with Canadian arts organizations, effectively serving community needs while meeting corporate objectives. The prestigious national awards program was created in 1978 as a partnership between The Financial Post and The Council for Business and the Arts in Canada (CBAC), the national business association committed to increasing private sector support of the arts through its leadership. Over the history of the Business in the Arts Awards over 150 businesses have been honoured - businesses large and small, working in a variety of industries in communities across Canada
To be eligible to win, businesses must be nominated by an arts organization. An independent panel of judges drawn from business and the arts then adjudicates the nominations and selects the winners in each of three categories: Most Effective Corporate Program, Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership and Most Innovative Marketing Sponsorship.
"This year’s jury was very clear that they weren’t just looking for examples of ‘cheque-book philanthropy’. They were looking for the imaginative application of ideas and expertise," says Iley. The 2002 Awards were juried by: Janet Belanger, Director of Community Relations, Great-West Life & London Life (Winnipeg); Louise Bellingham, Sr. Director, Sponsorships, CSR & University Research, Bell Canada (Toronto); Howard Jang, General Manager, Arts Club Theatre (Vancouver); David McKenzie, Chief Executive Officer, Confederation Centre of the Arts (Charlottetown) and Brett Wilson, Managing Director & Chairman, FirstEnergy Capital Corp. (Calgary), who served as Chair.
Big Rock Brewery (Calgary) won the Award for Most Innovative Marketing Sponsorship because of its creation of the Big Rock Eddies in collaboration with One Yellow Rabbit Theatre. Touted as "Calgary’s answer to the Oscars", the Eddies is a parody film festival of 60-second beer commercials created by independent filmmakers. The theatre company produces the evening’s entertainment and receives half of the proceeds from the event, while the other half goes to another charity. Much-publicized, the zany sell-out evening has become a signature event, effectively raising the profile of both the brewery and the theatre company, helping to brand both as hip and happening, while providing them with enviable reputations in the Calgary market.
For its creation of the Aliant Telecom - Arts Council Cultural Innovation Fund, Aliant (St. John’s) has won the Award for Most Effective Corporate Program. Inspired to initiate artistic "journeys of discovery" after marking the 500th Anniversary of Cabot’s landing in Newfoundland, the telecommunications company created the $1 million fund at the Arts Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. Its aim is to encourage the province’s artists to explore new media and discover how new technologies might enhance their work. The result has been that, to date, 64 grants have been made to playwrights, comics, writers, painters, photographers, animators, musicians and filmmakers who have expanded the boundaries of the medium while dramatically altering their art-making.
The Manitoba Bar Association has won the category of Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership for the commitment of its many members to an original partnership with the Manitoba Theatre Centre that has become such a successful model that it warrants a special clause in the Equity contract. In 1990 the MBA agreed to apply its court room skills to the stage, its members appearing in MTC’s production of 12 Angry Jurors, and selling tickets to all their friends and relatives. Seven more productions have been mounted since, MBA members volunteering over 26,000 hours of their time, acting, singing and promoting these events which have cumulatively raised over $300,000 for the theatre - while providing an artistic outlet for those who normally only play to a courtroom.
On October 8th in Calgary each of the three Award winners will receive a bronze sculpture created by the late William McElcheran, an internationally renowned Canadian artist who left an artistic legacy of whimsical bronze businessmen - one set in the middle of Calgary’s 8th Avenue Mall. In their look-alike suits and hats, toting briefcases, McElcheran’s sculpted businessmen have found their way into public and private collections in North America, Europe and Japan. His Business in the Arts Award itself holds pride of place in over 60 Canadian business headquarters.
Five more businesses will be honoured with Awards of Distinction.
In the category of Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership a small business called Catered Fare has won for its dedicated and imaginative support of Oakville Galleries. This one-woman operation has provided countless hours of volunteer time, over $50,000 in goods and services and $18,000 in cash to Oakville Galleries, serving on the board, recruiting sponsors and organizing events. Using her cross-promotional savvy, she has also increased the Galleries’ revenues from rentals of the facility, while showcasing her catering talents at its fund raising events.
Alcan Primary Metal Group-British Columbia has also won an Award of Distinction in the category of Best Arts/Entrepreneur Partnership for its creation of the Alcan Performing Arts Award, at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. Truly entrepreneurial in spirit, this Award doesn’t reward past efforts but anticipates future success, by providing the means for one professional BC performing arts company to create a new work which is then presented as part of the VECC’s season. Alcan has committed $500,000 over 6 years to this award, thereby creating the largest cash award for the creation of new work in Canada - $60,000 a year for music, dance, opera and theatre in BC.
The Award of Distinction for Most Innovative Marketing Sponsorship goes to RBC Financial Group for the annual Seniors’ Jubilee at Roy Thomson Hall. Over the past 12 years RBC’s sponsorship of this event has helped it to grow into Canada’s largest Seniors’ Entertainment Showcase, which lasts 5 days and involves over 1,300 performers (all of them aged 55+). The Bank has used this event to develop relationships with the growing market of seniors in over 180 Ontario communities. A capacity audience of 12,000 attended last year - 99% of whom felt that RBC’s sponsorship was "totally fitting".
In the category of Most Effective Corporate Program Bank of Montreal has won an Award of Distinction for its support of theatre - an ongoing tradition at the Bank from the earliest days of the Stratford Festival 50 years ago. Building on that support, most recently the Bank helped to create Canada’s largest cash prize for theatre, The Elinore & Lou Siminovitch Prize which provides $75,000 a year for a winning director, designer or playwright - and allows him or her to direct another $25,000 to a protégé or organization.
Another Award of Distinction for Most Effective Corporate Program goes to TrueNorth Energy for its strategic alliance with many Alberta arts organizations in an effort to brand itself as a native Alberta company. Seeing itself as a company practicing "new directions", it has undertaken a sponsorship program of arts events all over Alberta, from helping to form the Fort McKay Cultural Awareness Committee to sponsoring the Calgary Opera and the Provincial Museum of Alberta.
Many of those arts groups will be on hand to celebrate when CBAC and National Post present the Awards at a special Tribute Dinner to Theodore Rozsa, O.C., winner of The Edmund C. Bovey Award, CBAC’s award for leadership support of the arts. Designed to recognize individuals who have had the vision to contribute their business leadership in support of the arts, The Edmund C. Bovey Award carries with it a cheque for $20,000 which the winner must give to the arts. This year’s Bovey Award recipient first came to Calgary with Shell Oil in 1949. He stayed in Canada to create, manage and eventually sell three oil businesses. Ever the entrepreneur, this talented geophysicist has invested in music as well as oil, stepping in to provide leadership at crucial times with steady, generous support to the Calgary Philharmonic, the Calgary Opera, and the Calgary Centre for the Performing Arts.
The Awards celebration will be held at the University of Calgary’s Rozsa Centre, a beautiful facility containing a state-of-the-art concert hall that was funded by a gift from Ted Rozsa. Petro-Canada and The Kahanoff Foundation are generously co-sponsoring the Tribute Dinner, while BMO Private Client Division, BMO Harris Private Banking and BMO Nesbitt Burns have joined forces to sponsor the Tribute Performance featuring opera singer Tracy Dahl and players from the Calgary Philharmonic. The Calgary Herald is graciously sponsoring the Awards Reception.
For more information: Sarah Iley or Eileen Love, CBAC : (416) 869-3016
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