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JOSE ANTONIO ABREU WINS GLENN GOULD PRIZE.
 The $50,000 Glenn Gould Prize is handed out every three years by the Canadian foundation of the same name to someone who has made an exceptional contribution to music. Forty-three international candidates were nominated this time by the public and the winner was the Venezuelan economist and musician Jose Antonio Abreu.
In addition to the $50,000 prize, the winner gets to choose a young musician from anywhere in the world to receive the $10,000 “City of Toronto-Glenn Gould International Protegé Prize in Music and Communication 2008”.
Jose Antonio Abreu has built a "cultural renaissance" called "El Sistema," the National System of Children and Youth Orchestras of Venezuela that comprises more than 100,000 young musicians, mostly from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, having an enormous impact on how music education is carried out not just in Venezuela but throughout the world. Abreu also founded Venezuela's Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Youth Orchestra.
The jury of the Glenn Gould Prize included the Canadian composer Paul Hoffert, Oscar-winning British filmmaker Anthony Minghella, Canadian tenor Ben Heppner, French-Canadian pianist Helène Mercier, American composer Peter Schickele and Toronto arts administrator Janice Price.
According to Anthony Minghella, it only took a few hours to reach a unanimous decision on Abreu and "it seemed…to be an extraordinary idea to award the prize to the one name… that probably nobody in Canada will have heard before today,…That was a wonderful idea because what it said was, this was a man who devoted his life to an idea, who wasn't promoting himself but promoting a vision of music as a healing, binding, culturally significant revolution in a way - transforming a country, using music to get to the people without privilege, to get to the excluded people of his country, to encourage them to work together, to think together, to aspire towards excellence."
Abreu expressed "endless gratitude" for the prize in a statement from Caracas. "I accept such a great distinction on behalf of all Venezuelan dedicated music teachers," he said. "I want to put emphasis on my ongoing commitment and dedication towards the cause of youth and young adults", while in typical Abreu fashion, wondering about how many instruments the award would be able to provide for his orchestras.
Abreu is expected to pick a protegé by the spring and accept the award at a gala in Toronto sometime in the fall.
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