Minister announces changes to celebrate Arts and Letters Awards

Kevin Aylward, Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, today announced changes to the Arts and Letters Awards, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the program.

"This is a very special year for the Arts and Letters Awards as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. The arts are a distinguishing feature of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the 50th anniversary of the Arts and Letters Awards is reason to celebrate. We are proud of this milestone, and have initiated some special projects for the anniversary year.

"First, we have changed the name from Arts and Letters Competition to Arts and Letters Awards. Second, we have increased emphasis on music composition to ensure the program is open to all genres of music. Third, our visual arts category has been combined into one comprehensive section to encourage artists of all media to submit their work. 

"To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the awards, we have made two other changes for 2002 alone. We are holding the David C. Saxon Humanitarian Essay Competition this year to commemorate the events of September 11, 2001. We have also invested $40,000 into the program to increase the amount of prize money available to entrants this year, to host an enhanced awards ceremony for June, produce a commemorative booklet which will recognize previous laureates and developed a new Web site."

Kevin Major, chair of the Arts and Letter Awards, added that the major change in the program is one of approach and philosophy. "Until this year, this program was called the Arts and Letters Competition. We felt that it was time to move away from a competitive approach to one where we recognized artistic achievement without trying to determine which of the dozens of entries in each category was the best, the second best and the third best a process which often turned out to depend on the slightest of differences."

The Arts and Letters Awards is a program open to the general public which recognizes artistic achievement in the literary arts, the visual arts and music. A Junior Division is open for entrants aged 12 to 18 years, and the Senior Division is open to professional and amateur artists 19 years of age and older. The program is operated by a board of directors composed of eminent artists appointed by the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, and chaired by Mr. Major.

Formerly, the Arts and Letters Competition awarded first, second and third prizes of $600, $300 and $150, respectively, in the Senior Division. In addition, two honourary mentions of $50 were awarded in each category. In the Junior Division, the prizes were respectively, $300, $200 and $100, with two $25 honourary mentions in each category. The new Arts and Letters Awards will feature equal prizes of $750 in the Senior Division and a larger number of equal prizes of $200 in the Junior Division. This represents the first increase in the awards in over a decade.

Another major change to the program is in the visual arts category. Previously, a visual artist could submit works in four separate categories: photography, painting, three-dimensional art, and drawing and printmaking. However, it is not unusual today for visual artists to combine two or more of these disciplines into one work of art, or to use other media not previously recognized in the regulations (e.g., stained glass, textiles, digital art). The committee therefore decided to combine all works of visual art into one comprehensive section.

"Given the level of musical activity which takes place in Newfoundland and Labrador it is decided that more emphasis should be provided to the music composition section. I believe we need to encourage more composers, and especially younger ones, to submit works to the program," said Minister Aylward. "This section is open to all types of music, including classical, rock, traditional/roots, country, reggae - anything you can think of.

"The David C. Saxon Humanitarian Essay Competition is normally held every second year, and was not initially scheduled to be held in 2002. However, the events of September 11 have brought a new urgency to the need to understand the causes of hostility between people. It was decided to hold the competition this year, with the title "What Lessons Must the Global Community Take from the Events of 11 September 2001?"

The awards ceremony will be held in the St. John's Arts and Culture Centre on the evening of Saturday, June 1, 2002. To recognize the 50th anniversary milestone, the ceremony will be held in the main stage of the centre, and will feature a sampling of winning entries from the previous half century in the literary arts, visual arts and music. The highlight of the evening will be the announcement of the winners of the 2002 awards.

Each year more than 1,300 entries are received for this competition. More information about the program, including rules and regulations as well as application forms, is available at the new Web site for the program: www.gov.nl.ca/artsandletters.

Media contact: Catherina Kennedy, Communications, (709) 729-0928.

2002 01 08                          4:45 p.m.