Toronto Competitions/Auditions

• "Court of the Christmas King" Photomount Contest Calling all artists! Unleash your creativity this fall and win $1000!
  Square One Shopping Centre, in partnership with the Mississauga Arts Council, is offering artists a unique opportunity to design the new photomount used to frame all Santa photos sold this holiday season. Painters, illustrators, graphic designers and visual artists of all disciplines are invited to apply!
• nextMEDIA Toronto Seeks Trailblazers With Digital Hot List Competition. Innovative digital media superstars to be showcased at media marketplace. Deadline for submissions is October 1
  Canada's premier digital media conference - is proud to announce that the third edition of the Digital Hot List is now open for submissions.
• The Distillery Historic District presents THE RIVER PEACE by Thomas + Guinevere
  Call for Artistic Collaborators: Musicians, dancers and more invited to help create large-scale installation piece for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2010 in The Distillery Historic District.
  Volunteers are needed in September to help bring to life The River Peace, a large-scale public participatory performance art installation created by Thomas + Guinevere and sponsored by The Distillery Historic District. It will premiere at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2010 on October 2 from 6:57pm to Sunrise.
• Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival. GREEN PITCH now open for submissions.
  Planet in Focus is pleased to announce a Call for Submissions for the Green Pitch; an annual program offering a unique opportunity for filmmakers to pitch their ideas in order to obtain development funding and in-kind services to support their project.
• CHINESE CULTURAL CENTRE OF GREATER TORONTO LAUNCHES CCC TORONTO INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION.  Rounds I-III at P.C. Ho Theatre in Scarborough
  The attention of the music world will be on Toronto when the first CCC Toronto International Piano Competition launches November 1-8, 2010.

"Court of the Christmas King" Photomount Contest Calling all artists!
Unleash your creativity this fall and win $1000!

The creator of the winning design will receive $1,000 in GOLD gift certificates for Square One Shopping Centre. This is an excellent opportunity for artists to add a creative and personal touch to Square One's new holiday experience titled, In the Court of the Christmas King. The winning artist's name will appear on each photomount. Additionally, this artist will be officially recognized at the grand opening of In the Court of the Christmas King, to be held on Thursday, November 18, 2010 at 7 p.m.

What is a photomount you ask? The photomount is the decorative matting which holds the Santa photo in place. Folded in half and printed on heavy weight card-stock, Square One is looking for a full colour decorative design which reflects the theme of this holiday experience. In the Court of the Christmas King has a Classical English feel featuring all new sets, costumes and designs drenched in holiday reds, greens and gold. What's more, Square One will donate 50 cents from each Santa photo sold to the Mississauga Arts Council!

In the Court of the Christmas King will be a great showcase for the artists of Mississauga. The opening night will feature performances by the children's choir from the Living Arts Centre Hendal's Messiah Rock show, ballet dancers, and a professional emcee. A dazzling light show titled Melody & Magic, will play each evening set to classic holiday music.

Deadline for Submission: Monday, September 27, 2010 at 4 pm.

Artwork can be dropped off in person, mailed or delivered to the Mississauga Arts Council office located at 300 City Centre Dr. Suite 1055, Mississauga, Ontario, L5B 3C9. The office is open from 9am to 4pm from Monday to Friday.

Once all submissions are collected, the artwork will be juried by a panel of master artists. The winner will be revealed in early October, 2010. For all additional information, please contact the Mississauga Arts Council at 905-615-4278.

nextMEDIA Toronto Seeks Trailblazers With
Digital Hot List Competition
innovative digital media superstars to be showcased at media marketplace
Deadline for submissions is October 1

• Hot Website - An innovative digital property that stands out from the rest
• Hot Technologies - Developers of the coolest applications, games and digital ad solutions which are in a league with the most popular; providing new, innovative methods of interaction with their audience.
• Hot Content - Producers of the best new online program or series that entertains Canadian audiences.
• Hot Ideas - Developers with a solution to the communication needs of Canada's leading brands.

The deadline for submissions is October 1st, 2010 at 5 p.m. EST. The online application and rules can be found online at www.nextmediaevents.com/toronto/the-digital-hot-list

About nextMEDIA
nextMEDIA is North America's premier digital media conference, opening up opportunities for delegates to access multi-platform partnerships and learn about key technology trends. nextMEDIA places attendees at the forefront of the evolving media marketplace. For companies in online content & publishing, interactive advertising, mobile, music, gaming and technology that support these areas, nextMEDIA is the ultimate gateway for connecting the mainstream media with the emerging digital ecosystem. nextMEDIA Toronto takes place November 29-30th, 2010 at the Design Exchange in Toronto.

The Distillery Historic District presents THE RIVER PEACE
by Thomas + Guinevere
Call for Artistic Collaborators: Musicians, dancers and more invited to help create large-scale installation piece for Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2010 in The Distillery Historic District.

Inspired by Mahatma Ghandi's concept and scope of Satyagraha, or non-violent resistance, The River Peace is a giant metaphoric river where the content is not water, but a mass human expression of peace.

A large-scale sculptural movement and sound performance installation, The River Peace will take the form of a 2,000-foot long luminescent sculpture, stretching around and through the historic laneways in Toronto's Distillery Historic District, which members of the public are invited to move through in their own meditative expression as musicians, dancers and creative collaborators create the illusion of a river in constant flow - with everyone's cell phones providing the installation's luminosity.

An aerial perspective of The River Peace will also be captured on video in The Distillery Historic District and projected onto the walls of Mill Street so the public can witness the real-time media artwork resulting from everyone's participation.

To help create the sound, flow and form of The River Peace, Thomas + Guinevere is making a Call for Public Participation, inviting volunteer collaborators to participate prior to and on the night of Nuit Blanche. Volunteer participants are needed in the following categories:

• Mass participatory orchestra (Sound Streams): Placed at special sound stations along the river, musical contributors (instrumentalists and vocalists from all musical styles welcomed) will create a large-scale site-specific orchestral soundscape. Musicians will collaborate with noted composer John McDowell who created the soundtrack for the Academy Award-winning documentary Born into Brothels.
• Movement meditations (Beacons & Currents): Dancers from all styles and disciplines will act as beacons of peace. Beacons positioned throughout The River Peace's course will be the home to dancers engaged in a durational movement meditation while River Currents will lead members of the public through the installation in a slow meditative choreography that can be done by everyone.
• Sculptural form set-up, movement and strike (Helmsmen): The sculptural form of The River Peace will be assembled, carried and steered by Helmsmen. Two hundred participants are required at any given time to mobilize the 2,000-foot long mobile sculpture made-up of lightweight telescopic poles connected by reflective banners.
• General volunteers (The Crew): Numerous tasks during the rehearsal and presentation of The River Peace will need to be assigned to volunteers who want to participate outside the artwork's creation and production, from ushering on the night of Nuit Blanche to instructing cell phone use for creating the light, etc.

Interested volunteers should contact TheRiverPeace@gmail.com or visit www.thomasandguinevere.com.

Visit www.thomasandguinevere.com for more info

ABOUT THE ARTISTS - Thomas + Guinevere
Thom Sokoloski and Jenny Anne McCowan have built a partnership around developing site-specific public participatory art installations. With their common interest in site-specific work, the interrelationships between art and public and their extensive experience in creating innovative multi-disciplinary performance and image-based work, they began Thomas + Guinevere.

What distinguishes their work from most conceptual and relational art practices is their insistence on the primacy of the visual and aesthetic impact of the work. Socially and historically relevant, interactive, and truly public through participation, they create a sculptural landscape by conducting an optical experiment on a grand scale that can be experienced from multiple perspectives. From afar, their work creates a temporal sculptural form, while up close the work offers accessibility into an experiential and visceral intimacy with the content. To this end, they rely on an interdisciplinary mix of creative collaborators from the community who step forward to participate in the artwork's process and construction.

In 2006, they were commissioned to create a large-scale public performance art work The Royal Flush, integrating the indoor and outdoor spaces of the Fallsview Casino that was presented all summer long. They were then commissioned by Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 06 to create Confinement of the Intellect, a metaphorical archaeological dig into the memory and history of mental health on Queen St. West. It then went to New York City in 2007 and was presented on the South Point of Roosevelt Island where it was renamed The Encampment and focused on the island's history as a centre of quarantine until 1975. In 2008, it was then presented in Ottawa's Major's Hill Park with a focus on Canada's history of intellectual disability. Upcoming works include The Ghost Net Project, The Hope Tower and a new version of The Encampment for the War of 1812 Bicentennial.

• Thom Sokoloski was co-founder of The Theatre Centre and Autumn Leaf Performance. Some of his signature work includes directing R. Murray Schafer's RA throughout the Science Centre and at the Holland Festival and Hermes Trismegistos inside Union Station for World Stage and Festival of Liege, his own Kafka in Love inside the Hart House swimming pool for World Stage and producing an international tour of Claude Vivier's Kopernikus, Michael Nyman, Master Musicians of Jajouka and the Sonic Boom series of new opera and music. He has curated for the McLuhan Festival 04, Toronto International Art Fair 05, Contact 07 and Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 09.
• Jenny Anne McCowan has an extensive background as a dancer and choreographer in creating and performing mass routines in rhythmic gymnastics in Canada and abroad, a developed working philosophy and practice of 'public momentum' drawn from her master's thesis on Rave Culture and a body of work that has been performed in New York City, London, Miami, Lyon and Berlin. Her dance/circus spectacle Raise, a fundraiser for a paralysed circus artist, created a mass following and collaboration between 100-plus performers and the public. She is now developing a series of solo works inspired by female artists and composers.
• John McDowell achieved worldwide recognition with his soundtrack to the Academy Award winning documentary Born into Brothels. The score blends Western and Indian music in a mesmerizing mix and features the seductive vocals of Brazilian Girls vocalist Sabina Sciubba. He was also the composer for the documentary Stolen, which premiered at TIFF in September, 2009. From the NYC area, John has worked with the likes of Sting, Santana, R. Murray Schafer and Donna Karan. In 2007, he orchestrated the soundscape for Thomas + Guinevere's The Encampment in NYC on Roosevelt Island.

Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival
GREEN PITCH now open for submissions

At the Green Pitch, five filmmakers, selected from a pool of competitors, pitch their green film projects to a panel of industry professionals. The event takes place at the Miles Nadal JCC (750 Spadina Avenue, Toronto) on Friday October 15 during Industry Day at the Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival.

The winning recipient receives a combination of cash and in-kind support, courtesy of CBC The Nature of Things, Wallace Studios, Toronto Lights Ltd. and Precision Transfer Technologies. Past winners include Montreal's Yung ChangforUp the Yangtze, a film that secured its initial funding at the 2004 Green Pitch and which later went on to capture Best Documentary at the 2009 Genies.

Additional success stories from this program includes 2007 Green pitch winner Burning Water, a powerful new film from Montreal-based Director Cameron Esler. The film has its Toronto premiere at the 2010 festival and is also scheduled to broadcast on CBC Television later this year.

"Burning Water raises environmental artistic expression by focusing the lens on an urgent issue - in this case environmental exploitation and its impact on communities- in a persuasive and engaging way," says Kathleen Mullen, Director of Programming.

Submissions for the Green Pitch are open to any Canadian filmmaker who has at least one film, video or television credit. Submissions close on September 10, 2010. Complete information is available at planetinfocus.org. The Planet in Focus International Environmental Film & Video Festival runs October 13 - 17, 2010 in Toronto.

About Planet in Focus
Planet in Focus is Canada's leading non-profit environmental media arts organization, producing year-round programming across Canada and around the world and fostering a new generation of environmental filmmakers. Visit planetinfocus.org for more information.

CHINESE CULTURAL CENTRE OF GREATER TORONTO LAUNCHES
CCC TORONTO INTERNATIONAL PIANO COMPETITION
Rounds I-III at P.C. Ho Theatre in Scarborough
Final Round November 8 at Koerner Hall, Royal Conservatory, Toronto

The CCC Toronto International Piano Competition offers a total of $28,000 U.S. in prize, with the first-prize winner receiving $15,000 U.S. along with orchestral and solo concert engagements. Second prize is $8,000 U.S., and third, $5,000 U.S.

Twenty competitors will be selected, and announced at a Media Launch in late September. The time and location will be announced closer to the date.

As Lang-Ning Liu, Artistic Director of the Competition, commented, “Hard work, exceptional talent and training are crucial, but not always enough to guarantee success for a solo pianist. One of the biggest challenges is finding the opportunity to be heard and appreciated. We have dedicated ourselves to creating a professional, international arena that will allow young, talented pianists to render their artistic visions to the best of their abilities, and to promote world-class excellence in the art of pianism. Live streaming on the internet will showcase their talent to the whole world.”

Lu Wang, co-Artistic Director and one of Toronto’s leading pianists added, “We wanted to put Toronto on the map for the world’s pianists. We are also allowing competitors freer rein in their choice of repertoire than do most competitions.”

Competition President is Dr. Ming-Tat Cheung, Chairman and President of the Chinese Cultural Centre (CCC) of Greater Toronto since 1989. Dr. Dong-Dong Dong is the Vice-President of the Competition.

Since the postmark deadline of June 30, Toronto’s CCC has received 100 entries from 25 countries, most of them from Canada, mainland China, Japan, Korea, Russia and the U.S.A. The entrants are almost evenly divided between men and women, with an average age of 25.7 – the majority being 26-30 years old. The youngest are a 12-year-old girl, Szuyu Su, from Taiwan, and 13-year-old boy, Robin Pan from Canada. The eldest is an American woman of 35, the maximum age. Other competitors come from France, Italy, Israel, Malaysia, Poland, Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Serbia, Algeria and Belarus.

DVDs submitted by the entrants are currently being evaluated by the Competition’s Artistic Committee.

THE ROUNDS:

• The 20 competitors they select will arrive in Toronto October 31. The Competition Opening Ceremony, Monday, November 1 features the draw for competition order, followed by piano try-outs. In Rounds I and II, November 2-3 and 4-5 respectively, competitors must each play a total of 55 minutes of different repertoire from memory. Six semi-finalists will compete in Round III, Sunday, November 7. In it, they play a 50-minute solo recital of their own choice Three finalists will be named that evening and perform with orchestra on Monday, November 8. Winners will be announced and prizes awarded at the conclusion of the evening.
• A competition break, Saturday, November 6, features master classes with the competition jurors.

JUDGES:

• The jury will be chaired by Professor Yoheved Kaplinsky, Chair of Piano and Director of the Pre-College program at New York’s Juilliard School, and a distinguished judge of many international competitions. On the panel are Canadians Marc Durand (professor of piano, UniversitÈ de MontrÈal and artistic coordinator of the Banff Centre’s 2010 Piano Master Class program) and Marietta Orlov (Faculty of Music, University of Toronto, and the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School); Americans Richard Dyer (former chief music critic of the Boston Globe) and John Giordano (jury chair, Van Cliburn International Piano Competition since 1973, and music director emeritus of the Fort Worth Symphony); Yong Hi Moon of Korea (professor of piano, Peabody Institute of Music, U.S.A.); and Arie Vardi of Israel (chair, Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, and professor of piano, Hochschule f¸r Musik in Hannover and at the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University).
• Honorary advisors are Peter Simon, President of the Royal Conservatory, Toronto; James Anagnoson, Dean of the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School; world renowned pianist Dang Thai Son, and Prof. David Beach of the University of Toronto and Royal Conservatory.

THE ORCHESTRAS:

• In the Final round, each of the three pianists performs a concerto with the Toronto Concert Orchestra conducted by Kerry Stratton.

LOCATIONS & TICKETS:

• The Opening Ceremony and first three rounds take place at the state-of-the-art, 626-seat P.C. Ho Theatre, Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto, 5183 Sheppard Ave. E. (at Progress/Sheppard bus stop). Sessions run 1-8 p.m. and cost $10 for an entire day. Tickets may be purchased at the door, or reserved by phoning (416) 292-9293 ext. 232, or by e-mailing tickets@cccpianocompetitions.org.
• Ticketing for the November 6 Master Class will be announced in a later time.
• The Competition’s Final (concerto) round is held Monday, November 8, 7:30 p.m. at the Royal Conservatory’s Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. W. Tickets, $25 to $35, are available by phone at (416) 408-0208 or via www.rcmusic.ca.

THE SPONSORS:

• The CCC Toronto International Piano Competition is made possible by the Celebrate Ontario grant, Rolex Canada Ltd., Philip Leong, Downtown Fine Cars Group, and other dedicated sponsors. The University of Toronto and The Royal Conservatory are major collaborators. Accommodation and local transportation will be provided by community volunteers to the competitors who require it.Details on all phases of the Competition, including the distinguished international judging panel and other key personnel are at www.cccpianocompetitions.org/international.html

Relevant Websites:

• Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto - www.cccgt.org
• Lang-Ning Liu - www.artoflangning.com
• Lu Wang - www.valentineconcert.com/luwang.html
• Yoheved Kaplinsky - www.juilliard.edu/asp/fsnew/faculty_details.php?FacultyId=361&School=College&Division=Music