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News Release Winnipeg Folk Festival AnnouncesLoreena McKennitt Recipient of Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement AwardThe Winnipeg Folk Festival is proud to announce that acclaimed singer/composer Loreena McKennitt has been named the recipient of the first Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award to be presented December 2, 2004 at the Folk Festival's Winter Wassail. McKennitt will be in attendance to accept the award. The Winnipeg Folk Festival Artistic Achievement Award was established this year to recognize outstanding achievement in the performance, composition and innovation of music in the folk genre, and to recognize a contribution to the retention and public awareness of folk music. A nominee must have performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival. The presentation consists of $10,000 cash and a commemorative award. Folk Festival Executive Director, Trudy Schroeder says, "The Winnipeg Folk Festival is delighted to honour the work and music of Loreena McKennitt. She has performed at our Festival at various stages in her career, and is a model of the artist as an agent of change in the industry and in the community. We want to celebrate her successes and her ongoing contribution." Loreena McKennitt has developed an international career, has taken an innovative approach to artist career management, and has contributed leadership and energy to many community projects. She performed at the Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1977, 1989, and 1992. In a recording career spanning nearly two decades, her "eclectic Celtic" music has won critical acclaim and multiple awards. Responding to her selection for this award, McKennitt says, "I am pleased and honoured to have been chosen to receive the Folk Festivalšs Artistic Achievement Award. The Winnipeg Folk Festival is a wonderful organization which has become a community and a law! unto itself, thanks to its vast network of volunteers, fans and guiding spirits, all brought together by a love of music. Performers and festival-goers alike experience the feeling of walking into the bosom of friends. The communal experience springs, I believe, from its dazzlingly broad church of genres, acts and personalities, all brought together in the truly glorious natural setting of Birds Hill Park. It's like a big family, and I am both proud to be a member of that extended family and grateful for the wonderful opportunities that the Festival offered to me at an early stage in my career." Join us in celebrating this great Canadian artist at the Winnipeg Folk Festival Winter Wassail, Thursday December 2, 2004 at the Fairmont Winnipeg. Tickets are available by calling 231-0096. - 30 - For media interviews: Loreena McKennitt/Quinlan Road, contact: |
