Toronto, May 14, 2012 – Leonard Cohen donated his $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize to the Canada Council for the Arts at a star-studded concert in his honour at Toronto's Massey Hall.
"The truth is without the help and encouragement of the Canada Council I would never have written The Favourite Game or The Spice Box of Earth," said Mr. Cohen. "I am profoundly grateful."
The Canada Council awarded Mr. Cohen an arts scholarship that helped launch his writing career in 1958, the first year of the Council's operations. The scholarship was extended for three more years and supplemented with a small travel grant and poetry reading fee.
"We are deeply honoured and moved by Mr. Cohen's donation back to the people of Canada," said Joseph L. Rotman, Canada Council Chair. "Artists give back in many ways – through making art, through connecting people to each other, through giving voice to Canada abroad – and none more so than Leonard Cohen. How remarkable, then, that he has chosen to make this additional gift to Canada's leading arts funder to ensure that others can benefit from the same support he received so early in his career."
Leonard Cohen is the ninth recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize, awarded by the Glenn Gould Foundation to celebrate brilliance, promote creativity and transform lives through the power of music and the arts. The Prize was originally administered by the Canada Council for the Arts until 2000. The Council also supported the Glenn Gould International Conference organized by the Foundation in 1992.
Founded in 1957, the Canada Council for the Arts promotes the study, enjoyment, and production of works in the arts. The Council offers a broad range of grants and services to professional Canadian artists and arts organizations in music, dance, integrated arts, media arts, theatre, visual arts, and writing and publishing. It also promotes public awareness of the arts through its communications, research and arts promotion activities, and houses both the ArtBank and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO.
