Young Nova Scotian Tenor Takes Grand Award Prize at National Competition
The 2014 National Music Festival took place in British Columbia from August 14-16 with fifty-three amateur musicians aged fourteen to twenty-eight from across the country competing in eight disciplines: piano, strings, voice, woodwinds, brass, guitar, chamber groups and for the first time ever, music theatre. The first place winners of each discipline competed for the Grand Award title and prize of $5,000 on Saturday, August 16 at the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna, and the winner is tenor Marcel d’Entremont from Merigomish, Nova Scotia. Marcel d’Entremont also took the $1,500 First Place Prize for Voice.
Now entering the second year of a Master’s in Music program at the University of Toronto, where he studying on full scholarship with Dr. Darryl Edwards, Marcel previously studied at Mount Allison University and at Acadia University. He is a past recipient of the New Glasgow Music Festival Rose Bowl and received the Gordon and Irene MacKinnon Memorial Voice Rose Bowl in the Halifax Kiwanis Music Festival for four consecutive years. In 2013, he placed 2nd in the University Vocal category of the International Hal Leonard voice competition, and also received an honourable mention in the musical theatre category. In 2014, Marcel represented Nova Scotia at the Federation of Canadian Music Festivals national competition in Kelowna BC, where he won both the first prize in the vocal category, as well as the Grand Award for overall best performer.
In the summer of 2012, Marcel was selected to represent Nova Scotia in the National Youth Choir, conducted by Ivars Taurins, and again in 2014 under the direction of Hilary Apfelstadt. Since then he has been the recipient of the Nova Voce voice scholarship as well as three Nova Scotia Talent Trust scholarships, being named the recipient of the Portia White Award, the highest award offered from the Talent Trust for voice, in 2013. In the summer of the same year, he was a featured soloist with the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo, performing for a combined audience of over 50,000 people, and returned for their 2014 performance. Marcel has also appeared as a soloist with the Mount Allison Choral Society, the Acadia Chorus, the Seton Cantata Choir, the Nova Voce provincial men’s choir, the South Shore Chorale, Nova Sinfonia, the Confederation Singers and orchestra, Opera Nova Scotia, Cantabile Chamber Singers, Maritime Concert Opera, and in 2015 he will be a soloist with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony and Grand Philharmonic Choir. After completing his education, Marcel hopes to pursue a career in performance.
Other Nova Scotian winners were Jaewon Choi, who received Third Place in the Woodwind category, and the Annapolis Valley Honour Choir directed by Heather Fraser, who received second place in the category Best Performance by a Community Choral Group 12 and under.
Past Grand Award winners of the National Music Festival include Daniel Taylor, Naida Cole, Scott Goodyear, Benjamin Bowman, Jasper Wood, Roger Admiral, Penelope Dale, Laura Whalen, Colin Ainsworth, Nikki Chooi and Todd Yaniw.
For a complete list of winners or more information regarding the Federation of Canadian Music Festivals, please visit www.fcmf.org.