Queen's professor earns Juno nomination

Queen's professor earns Juno nomination

By Communications Staff

February 2, 2016

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John Burge (Music) has received a Juno nomination for his compostion Piano Quartet. (University Communications)

Queen’s University professor and composer John Burge (Music) has been nominated for a Juno Award, it was announced Tuesday.

Dr. Burge, received the Classical Composition of the Year nomination for Piano Quartet, which was commissioned and recorded by Ensemble Made In Canada.

[Piano Quartet]
Piano Quartet, by John Burge (Music), was commissioned and recorded by Ensemble Made In Canada. 

Dr. Burge won the Juno in the same category in 2009 for Flanders Fields Reflections.

Back then, Dr. Burge was vacationing in the Caribbean when the nominations were announced. This time, however, he was prepared and watched the proceedings live online in his campus office.

“All things considered, it really is very exciting to feel lightning strike twice as there are always so many deserving recordings made every year in this category,” he says. “The 2016 nomination for my Piano Quartet is especially meaningful because the group that commissioned and recorded the work, Ensemble Made In Canada, have kept the piece in their repertoire and performed it almost a dozen times in Canada and the United States since its premiere performance in 2012. It is great to have your music championed in this way and I expect that they will be playing the piece a few more times over the next few years given the Juno nomination.”

Dr. Burge describes Piano Quartet as “a very traditional work in three movements that lacks a descriptive title or narrative story and is really a true example of absolute music in the tradition of Brahms or Bartok.”

In 2010, Queen’s Music Continuing Adjunct Lecturer Marjan Mozetich won the Juno in the same category for Lament in the Trampled Garden.

The Juno Awards ceremony will be held Sunday, April 3, in Calgary.

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