Hooray Leonard Cohen

The award of the Glen Gould Prize to Leonard Cohen a few days ago (read the article from CBC News) has a Salt Spring connection.

David Visentin, the director of the Toronto El Sistema project to which Mr. Cohen donated his $15,000 protégé award, is also Artistic Director of our summer Salt Spring Chamber Music Festival. He will be here again this July with the accustomed faculty plus the Alcan String Quartet as special guests.

So congratulations David for starting the Toronto version of El Sistema. We’ll see if we can organize a talk this summer at ArtSpring so David can explain how this amazing music training programme for kids at risk works and describe his experiences with it.

Meanwhile, thanks from us also to Leonard Cohen for his generosity toward a most worthwhile arts project.