By Katherine Gombay
Cellist Yegor Dyachkov, who teaches at the Schulich School of Music, is one of the lucky thirteen McGill instructors and graduates who have been nominated for a Juno award this year. Dyachkov, along with the two other members of the piano trio Triple Forte, is up for best classical album of the year (solo or chamber ensemble) for the groups’ self-titled debut album, which is garnering great reviews for their performance of music by Maurice Ravel, Dmitri Shostakovich and Charles Ives.
Schulich School of Music graduates in jazz are going to be in tough competition with one another, with three of the five nominations for contemporary jazz album of the year going to François Houle, Joel Miller and Rafael Zaldivar. Elizabeth Shepherd, another alumna, has been nominated for the best vocal jazz album of the year.
Few were surprised that poet and perennial favourite, Leonard Cohen, a McGill English grad, was nominated for three Juno awards alone, including one for the best artist of the year and another for songwriter of the year for his album Old Ideas.
With nominations in the categories for best children’s album of the year (Jennifer Gasoi), best solo roots and traditional album (Old Man Luedecke), best dance recording (Dragonette’s Dan Kurtz), best instrumental album of the year (Nicolas Caloia’s Ratchet Orchestra) and best music DVD of the year (McGill grads and brothers Pierre and François Lamoureux for Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion Project) it’s clear that McGill graduates and instructors are making a big noise in every aspect of the Canadian music scene.
Go here for a complete list of Juno nominations.