Toronto, October 27, 2026 – Composers Alice Ping Yee Ho and Elienna Wang are the 2026 recipients of the Kathleen McMorrow Music Award. These $10,000 awards recognize the composition and presentation of contemporary classical music by Ontario composers and is given annually to two applicants of the Ontario Arts Council Music Creation Projects program.
Alice Ping Yee Ho is being awarded for Beneath the Sea of Time, a concerto for harp and chamber orchestra, commissioned by the JUNO Award–winning Sinfonia Toronto under Maestro Nurhan Arman. The piece will premiere on March 4, 2027, at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, featuring Canadian harpist Teresa Suen-Campbell.
Elienna Wang is receiving this award in recognition of her composition for piano and orchestra commissioned by the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra and to be performed at their May 2027 concert: The Romantic Spirit, with soloist Christina Quilico.
About Alice Ping Yee Ho
Alice Ping Yee Ho (何水頤) is an award-winning Chinese Canadian composer celebrated for her innovative music that seamlessly blends Eastern and Western traditions. Her diverse body of work spans opera, orchestral, chamber, dance, theatre, and electroacoustic genres, all marked by originality and emotional depth.
A three-time JUNO Award nominee, Ho’s prestigious honours include the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music, the Barlow Endowment Commissioning Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the Johanna Metcalf Performing Arts Prize, and the Louis Applebaum Composers Award. Her groundbreaking opera CHINATOWN, the first Hoisanese-English opera, created with librettist Madeleine Thien and co-writer Paul Yee, earned multiple accolades, including the Barbara Pentland Award of Excellence.
Based in Toronto, Ho holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Toronto. She has released thirteen solo albums, cementing her status as a groundbreaking creator with a singular musical voice.
About Elienna Wang
Elienna Wang
(王语璇) is a Chinese Canadian composer based in Richmond Hill. A University of Toronto graduate, she studied classical contemporary composition under Abigail Richardson-Schulte, Norbert Palej, and Gary Kulesha. Her concert works have been performed by numerous Ontario ensembles, including the minMAX Electroacoustic Orchestra and the University of Toronto Opera Department. She also recently presented electronic media repertoire at the 2026 Space Between V Percussion Conference.
Beyond concert stages, Wang is an active media composer with over ten collaborative film and video game projects, earning awards at festivals like the Los Angeles Animation Festival.
Her creative process uniquely bridges her Chinese heritage with diverse global influences. Wang reinterprets ancient Chinese poetry and philosophy to reflect on modern global issues and nature. Seamlessly blending classical traditions with popular culture, her style incorporates jazz idioms, multimedia aesthetics, and inspirations from Japanese traditional and popular music.
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. Beginning in 2024, the award is presented annually to two composers.
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 previous Ontario Arts Council Music Creation Projects program application deadlines.
Previous award winners include Corey Butler and Ted Runcie (2025), Rashaan Allwood and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan (2024), and Suba Sankaran (2023). See the full list of previous recipients.
###
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 2025-2026, the OAF paid over $5.7 million in endowment income and $630,000 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 2021-22. 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.
Ce document existe également en français.