The Canadian League of Composers and the Canadian Music Centre are thrilled to announce Dr. Elaine Keillor as the recipient of the 2025 Friends of Canadian Music Award. Elaine has selected J. Alex Young to receive support as an emerging artist.
A performer, teacher, and scholar, Elaine Keillor’s contribution to the fabric of Canadian music is almost immeasurable. After receiving her ARCT from the Royal Conservatory of Music at the age of 10 in 1951, Dr. Keillor went on to build a successful career as a performer, releasing over 29 recordings and CDs, almost all of which featured the work of Canadian composers both living and past. In 1976 she became the first woman ever to earn a Ph. D. in musicology from the University of Toronto, subsequently holding teaching positions at York University, Queen’s University, McMaster University, the University of Ottawa – where she remains an adjunct professor – and Carleton University, where she is a Distinguished Research Professor Emerita.
Similar to her performing career, and beginning at a time where there was very little academic attention paid to the subject, Dr. Keillor’s scholarship has featured a profound commitment to exploring the world of Canadian classical music. She has published dozens of essays and reviews, over a hundred and fifty encyclopedia entries, and multiple books including John Weinzweig: The Radical Romantic of Canada in 1994, and Music in Canada: Capturing Landscape and Diversity in 2006. She has also spent considerable time researching the history of Indigenous music across North America, culminating in the Encyclopedia of Native American Music of North America, written with Dr. John Medicine Horse Kelly.
She was a founding member of the Canadian Musical Heritage Society, a key contributor to the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, served on the board of the Canadian Music Centre, and was one of the first members of the CMC’s Accountability for Change Council. In 2016, Dr. Keillor was appointed a member of the Order of Canada, “for her contributions as a musicologist and historian of Canada’s musical heritage.”
J. Alex Young is a Cree-Settler Composer from Northern Ontario. He holds degrees from Carleton University, the University of Ottawa, and a Ph.D. in Composition from the University of Calgary, based on research of his Cree culture, storytelling, ceremony and song as inspiration for creative work. He is currently a dedicated member of the Canadian Music Centre’s Accountability for Change and Indigenous Advisory Councils. The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra premiered his piece ᓵᑯᐦᑖᐤ – šâkohtâw for Tom Jackson’s digital series The Bear and the Wild Rose. He is an Assistant Professor of Composition at Brandon University. J. Alex Young feels that the unity of self, community, land and spirit must be maintained to reflect a musical concord between his Indigenous Cree and Western settler heritage. His compositions are a combination of Western sonic orchestrations and Cree-based narrative explorations of his connection to home, family, story and spirituality.
