BU professor receives lifetime achievement award from Canadian Music Centre Prairie

Brandon University (BU) Professor Megumi Masaki has been recognized with the Violet Archer Lifetime Achievement Award by the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) Prairie Region.

A Professor of Piano in BU’s School of Music, Masaki was presented with the award “in recognition of her extraordinary contributions to Canadian music and her lasting impact on generations of artists.”

The CMC noted how Masaki, over a career of more than four decades, has “contributed to national dialogues on equity, reconciliation, and inclusion in the arts, and opened platforms for underrepresented voices, particularly women, Indigenous, and marginalized artists,” as well as “transformed the way we experience sound, performance, and community.”

Masaki became the Artistic Director of the Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition in 2006 and is the Director of the Brandon University New Music Ensemble and the BU New Music Festival, which took place this week, featuring compositions and performances by BU students. She founded the Rising Stars outreach program in 2006 to bring Canadian music to communities across the prairies and was Director of Music at the Banff Centre in 2023 and 2024. Masaki’s work has combined sound with image, text, electronics and computer technology to transform the piano and its surrounding space into both a visual and musical instrument. She has been named to the Royal Society of Canada and to the Order of Manitoba.

Violet Archer was a celebrated Canadian composer and educator who wrote more than 280 compositions in a career spanning six decades.

CMC Prairie was founded in 1980, collaborating with local organizations in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta to promote Canadian composers and Canadian music.

The full CMC Prairie release announcing Masaki’s recognition as the Violet Archer Lifetime Achievement Award recipient can be read at PR.CMCCanada.org/megumi-masaki-award.

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