Sound CheckCanadian pianist Glenn Gould to receive Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award
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The 55th annual Grammy Awards have announced their group of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients and among them are artists such as Ravi Shankar, the Temptations, Carole King, Patti Page, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Charlie Haden.
In addition, Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould will be posthumously recognized with the prize, which President and CEO of The Recording Academy Neil Portnow says, "[Honours] those who have greatly contributed to our industry and cultural heritage."
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He also said, "Their exceptional accomplishments, contributions and artistry will continue to influence and inspire generations to come."
To help you brush up on your Gould trivia, here are a few things you should know about this gifted Canadian musician who, in addition to playing the piano, was also a composer, conductor, broadcaster and writer.
1. He already has four Grammy Awards and a spot in the Grammy Hall of Fame.
In 1973, Gould won his first Grammy for Best Album Notes — Classical for "Hindemith: Sonatas For Piano." In 1982, he took home two golden gramophones in the categories of Best Classical Album and Best Classical Performance, Instrumental Soloist (Without Orchestra) for his record "Bach: The Goldberg Variations," which also helped him get into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1983. That year, he also won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance - Instrumental Soloist Or Soloists (Without Orchestra) for his work "Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 12 & 13."
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2. Cellist extrodinare Yo-Yo Ma looks up to him.
Ma was the Fifth Glenn Gould Prize Laureate in 1999, and upon accepting the honour, which is a $50,000 award "[given] to an individual for a unique lifetime contribution that has enriched the human condition through the arts," he said, "Glenn Gould was, since my college days, one of my great heroes."
3. He is sitting on a bench in Toronto.
In 1999, a bronze sculpture of Gould was unveiled on Front Street in Toronto and features the pianist wearing a hat, gloves, scarf, and rubber toe boots.
"Glenn Gould was a master of his own image and having made the decision to cease touring he worked privately in the studio where he could control all public images of himself," the sculpture Ruth Abernethy said. "In trying to honour the Gould legacy, it made sense to work from an existent photograph. Of course it was a good photo, and one that Gould loved of himself. In the photo he looks casual yet in fact he's completely poised, which is classic Gould, I think."
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4. He died in 1982.
At the age of 50, Gould suffered a stroke and subsequently passed away.
5. He was a fan of Barbra Streisand.
According to the Toronto Star, Gould's favourite Streisand song was "He Touched Me."
In addition, he penned an article about the chanteuse in 1976 and described her talent, writing, "For me, the Streisand voice is one of the natural wonders of the age, an instrument of infinite diversity and timbral resource. It is not, to be sure, devoid of problem areas—which is an observation at least as perspicacious as the comment that a harpsichord is not a piano or, if you insist, vice versa."
6. He played the piano like this.
7. He has a school named after him.
The Glenn Gould School in Toronto used to be called The Royal Conservatory of Music Professional School but was renamed in 1997 for the talented alum.
8. CBC News has dubbed him a "musical pioneer."
In an interview, Paul Théberge, a music technology researcher for the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art and Culture, spoke of what Gould was like in the 1960s, saying, "The recording industry and the media industries and television were kind of at their height at that point and he tapped into something that was going on all around him."
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He also said, "People in popular music were using multi-tracking and finding a new way to perform in the studio, a new way to kind of assemble their performances... Gould was part of that movement of trying to push that technology in new directions and kind of do something that had never been done before."
9. At the age of six, he learned that he got along better with animals than with humans.
According to his father, Gould loved animals and even used to perform for them.
"He liked to sing to the cows," Gould's father said. "As a child at the cottage … he'd strike off on a bicycle. … So I'd take the car and maybe find him five miles away on the side of the road. And one day I came along and he was singing to a bunch of cows. They were all lined up inside the fence."
