Lindsay Barrett and Alex Goodman Receive Prestigious Graduating Awards

03 June 2010 - The Faculty of Music is proud to announce that soprano Lindsay Barrett (OpDip 2010) is the recipient of the Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award and Alex Goodman (MusBac Performance, Guitar 2010) is the recipient of the William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award.

Each of the prestigious graduating awards comes with a prize of $25,000, the largest awards given by the Faculty of Music. For consideration of the award, candidates are required to submit an application with letters of recommendation and an outline of future goals.

Established in 2005, the William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award created by Dr. William Waters and the Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award created by Dr. John B. Lawson are given to graduating students of the Faculty of Music who are Ontario residents demonstrating financial need who are deemed to have the greatest potential to make an important contribution to the field of music. The awards were created to support and encourage graduating students to achieve their career goals.

Lindsay Barrett

Lindsay Barrett on far right as Cunegonde in the 2010 production of Candide

Praised for her "uncommonly beautiful voice” and “sparkling lyric coloratura”, Lindsay has begun an exciting music career. She makes her professional operatic debut as Violetta in Saskatoon Opera’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata in June 2010 and later this summer will return to the Highland Opera Studio to perform the role of Laetitia in Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief.

Last summer, she was a member of the Opera Theater Center of the Aspen Music Festival, where she covered the role of Donna Elvira in their production of Don Giovanni. She was also heard as Micaela in scenes from Carmen, and as Violetta, performing excerpts from La Traviata with Asher Fisch and the American Academy of Conducting Orchestra. She stepped in with only five days notice to perform Charles Fussell’s Goethe Lieder with Sydney Hodkinson and the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble. Lindsay has been a member of Richard Margison’s Highlands Opera Studio where she has performed the roles of Fanny in Rossini’s La Cambiale di Matrimonio, Clara in Pasatieri’s Signor Deluso (2008), and Galatea from Von Zuppe’s Die Schone Galatea (2007).

Lindsay was recently awarded the Peter and Hélène Hunt Graduating Scholarship (2010), the David and Marcia Beach Summer Study Award (2009) and has been given numerous awards from the Canadian Opera Volunteer Committee.

A recent graduate of the University of Toronto Opera Division, she was heard as Cunegonde from Bernstein’s Candide, Flaminia from Haydn’s Il mondo della luna, La Princesse in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges, as well as the Mother in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. She also studied and performed excerpts as Tatyana from Eugene Onegin, Mimi from La Boheme, and Massenet's Manon. A frequent performer of oratorio, Lindsay has sung the soprano solos from Faure’s Requiem, Handel’s Messiah, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. This past year included recitals with Off Centre Music Salon, The Toronto Arts and Letters Club and The Aldeburgh Connection’s Discovery Series.

Alex Goodman

Alex Goodman has worked extensively as a guitarist, composer, pianist and arranger and has established himself as a rising star on the Canadian jazz scene. Although he is in his early twenties, Alex has already organized three Canadian tours and recorded two albums as a band leader. He has been involved in numerous tours as a sideman and has played throughout the country at major venues such as Massey Hall, the Glenn Gould Studio and the Eric Harvie Theatre. He has played at almost every major Canadian jazz club and has performed at jazz festivals including those in Ottawa, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Toronto and Guelph. He has been featured in magazines and newspapers across the country and has appeared on CityTV News, Global BC and City TV’s Breakfast Television. He has performed on three continents and is a core member of the National Jazz Award winning Ed Vokurka Jazz Violin Ensemble.

He studied at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University as well as the University of Toronto where he was awarded three merit-based scholarships including the first ever Noreen & Phil Nimmons Entrance Scholarship in Jazz Performance. In addition to the Nimmons Scholarship, he has won many awards highlighting his accomplishments including: two Banff Program for Jazz and Creative Music merit awards, the Archie Alleyne Scholarship, the Arthur Plettner Scholarship, the Richard Iowerth Thorman Jazz Scholarship, a Factor Jazz Demo Grant and recognition as a CBC/Galaxie 2008 “Rising Star.” Alex is also an accomplished composer with over 100 compositions in his portfolio and two award winning film scores. The first, “Goodbye Rosebud” won the William Marshall award and the second “Reality Check” was aired nationally on Global Television.

Although Alex has pursued music as his vocation, he is also quite accomplished in other fields. He has learned to speak English, French and Spanish and was the founder of a bilingual not-for-profit organization in Quebec that worked to provide leadership in the Quebec academic and developmental peace building sectors. He wrote a thesis on “An Assessment of Think tanks and Canadian Policy Oriented Peace Research Organizations” through the Department of Political Science at McGill University with internationally acclaimed political scientist Rex Brynen. He has worked for Citizenship and Immigration Canada as a marketing and project development leader in 2004, and in 2007, worked for the Canadian think tank The Dominion Institute as a researcher and French Canadian coordinator.

Previous recipients

Tecumseh Sherman Rogers Graduating Award
2009 – Christopher Ku (MA Music 2009, MusBac Performance, Organ, 2007)
2008 – Lucille Mok (MusBac 2008)
2007 – Christopher Donnelly (MusM 2007 Jazz Performance, MusBac Performance, Piano, 2005)
2006 – Ryan Jackson (MusBac Performance, Organ, 2006)

William and Phyllis Waters Graduating Award
2009 – Lauren Sweetman (MA Ethnomusicology 2009, MusBac 2007)
2008 – Katarzyna Sadej (MusM Voice Performance, 2008)
2007 – Stephen Hegedus (MusM Voice Performance 2007, MusBac Performance, Voice, 2005)
2006 – Sarah Nematallah (MusBac Performance, Violin, 2006)