23 février 2005
Jasper Wood wins East Coast Music Award
Classical Recording of the Year on Canadian Music Centre’s Centrediscs label
Toronto

February 23, 2005 (Toronto) – New Brunswick-born violinist Jasper Wood received the East Coast Music Award of best “Classical Recording of the Year” for his Centrediscs recording of The Great Square of Pegasus. Wood, known for his brilliant control and complete mastery of technique, performs with Canadian pianist Audrey Andrist of works by Canadian composer Andrew Paul MacDonald. A Canadian Music Centre Associate Composer, MacDonald has won numerous prizes and awards for his works and has been performed, recorded and broadcasted around the world.

Wood discovered MacDonald’s work through studying the piece Great Square of Pegasus. “I
really believed that the Great Square of Pegasus was impossible to perform well – technically and musically. At one point I had all but given up on the piece…I revisited the piece and it was at this moment as I played through the work again, that my connection with his music was realized,” Wood describes in his liner notes. “After discovering this connection with the music of Andrew MacDonald, I knew that I wanted to record a CD of his music.”

After mastering this work, Wood commissioned MacDonald to create another solo work and
two duo pieces for violin and piano for the recording. All four works draw their inspiration from Greece and Greek mythology and send the listener on a musical odyssey of intense feeling and richness.

This is Centrediscs first East Coast Music Award. The Great Square of Pegasus has also been
nominated in the 2005 Canadian Music Weeks’ Indie Awards for “Favourite Classical Artist/Group.”

Established in 1959, the Canadian Music Centre exists to stimulate the awareness,
appreciation and performance of Canadian music, making the music of its Associate
Composers available through its music libraries and through its various promotional and
outreach activities. The CMC is Canada’s primary information resource, producer, distributor and rental agent of concert music and sound recordings.

In 1981, Centrediscs was created as Canada’s foremost label of Canadian contemporary concert music, recording the works of Canadian composers associated with the Canadian Music Centre. With over 100 titles, recordings are sold and distributed world-wide and online at
www.centrediscs.ca.

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