Toronto, October 15, 2024 – Composers Rashaan Allwood and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan are the recipients of this year’s $10,000 Kathleen McMorrow Music Award. The award recognizes the composition and presentation of contemporary classical music by Ontario composers. Beginning in 2024, two awards will be made annually to an applicant from each of the Ontario Arts Council Music Creation Projects program application deadlines.
Rashaan Allwood is being awarded for his new work Black Ice commissioned for piano and nine instruments, and is set to premiere in February 2025 with New Music Concerts in Toronto.
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is receiving his award for a commissioned project for chamber orchestra entitled “C’est Pas Beau?”. Commissioned by the Glenn Gould School New Music Ensemble, the project will have its world premiere at the Royal Conservatory’s 21C Music Festival in January 2025.
About Rashaan Allwood
Rashaan Rori Allwood is a versatile composer, performer, and educator known for his interdisciplinary approach to music. With expertise in organ, piano, and historical performance practice, he integrates classical, electronic, and world music in innovative ways. Rashaan holds a Master of Music degree in Organ Performance from McGill University and a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance from the University of Toronto. He is currently pursuing a PhD in composition at Western University under the guidance of Paul Frehner, focusing on improvisation, multimedia, and contemporary composition.
Rashaan’s artistic vision is grounded in his commitment to merging historical and contemporary musical practices. His diverse repertoire spans from medieval music to avant-garde electronic sounds including unique adaptations of classical pieces using modular synthesizers, drawing inspiration from figures like Wendy Carlos.
About Kalaisan Kalaichelvan
Kalaisan Kalaichelvan is a composer and pianist based in Toronto, Canada. His compositional practice spans multiple disciplines, drawing from film, dance, theatre, and installation and deals with themes of translation and transference.
Kalaisan’s music has been performed and premiered by celebrated ensembles such as Pro Coro Canada, the Dior Quartet, New Music Concerts and Extended Music Collective. Kalaisan was awarded the SOCAN Emerging Composer Award in 2023 and was also recently awarded the Creativity Connection Fellowship with Toronto Metropolitan University. In 2023, Kalaisan wrote the music for the film “In Flames”, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was selected as the Pakistani entry for Best International Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Kalaisan has been mentored by esteemed composers and music leaders such as Paul Wiancko and David Harrington of Kronos Quartet, Huang Ruo, Brian Current and Suzanne Farrin. Having worked across various disciplines and communities of thought, Kalaisan seeks to bring together incongruous institutions to build new structures that can hold the many different traditions he was raised in.
About the Award
The Kathleen McMorrow Music Award was established in 2015. Kathleen McMorrow headed the Music Library at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Music from 1974 to 2013. She established the award to recognize and encourage the composition and presentation of Canadian contemporary classical music.
The Ontario Arts Foundation manages the endowment that funds the award. The Ontario Arts Council is responsible for the selection process. The award recipients are selected from the applicants to the two Ontario Arts Council Music Creation Projects program application deadlines.
Previous award winners include Suba Sankaran (2023), Afarin Mansouri (2022), and Suad Bushnaq (2021). See the full list of previous recipients.
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For information, please contact:
Bruce Bennett, Executive Director
Ontario Arts Foundation
Tel: (416) 969-7413 bbennett@oafdn.ca
Established in 1991, the Ontario Arts Foundation (OAF) is passionately committed to building long-term support for the arts in Ontario. In 2023-2024, the OAF paid over $4.6 million in endowment income and $500,000 in awards and grants.
For 60 years, the Ontario Arts Council (OAC) has played a vital role in promoting and assisting the development of the arts for the enjoyment and benefit of Ontarians. The OAC reached 27.4 million people through events and arts education activities across the province in 2021-2022. In 2023-2024, OAC invested its grants program budget of $53.3 million in 219 communities across all 124 Ontario ridings, providing 2,149 grants to individual artists and 1,043 grants to organizations.
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