SASKATOON — The SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival has announced the award winners for the 2023 Special Recognition Award and the Jim Hill Festival Builders Award.
Every year the festival acknowledges musicians that have made a significant contribution to Saskatchewan’s music culture through the Special Recognition Award. This award has been received by many great artists who have and continue to shape the jazz community in Saskatchewan and beyond.
The 2023 winner of the Special Recognition Award is the Saskatoon Jazz Orchestra (SJO). Under the artistic leadership of trumpeter Dean McNeill, the SJO since its inception has been committed to presenting the highest calibre of professional-level large jazz ensemble music to the city of Saskatoon and beyond for over 10 years. The roots of this ensemble extend back even further through the work of the Metro Jazz Ensemble (also conducted by Dean McNeill), which performed at the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival for over a decade before the establishment of the SJO.
All SJO concerts strive to feature important and emerging music and musicians whose professional work intersects specifically with the large jazz ensemble idiom.
The SJO has partnered annually with the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival, often presenting some of the SJO’s biggest and most artistically audacious projects, including performing in special celebration concerts commemorating the festival’s 25th, 30th and 35th anniversaries. In addition to creating opportunities for much of Saskatchewan’s established and emerging jazz talent, the SJO has also demonstrated a commitment to paying it forward in terms of youth jazz-specific education. Since 2017, through the creation and ongoing support of the Saskatoon Youth Jazz Orchestra, the SJO has shown its determination to ensure this musical art form is carried forward.
More information about the SJO is available here: https://saskatoonjazzorchestra.com/.
Jim Hill Festival Builders Award
The Jim Hill Festival Builders Award has been presented annually since 2006. The purpose of the Jim Hill Festival Builders Award is to recognize people who have made major contributions to the success of the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival.
The 2023 winner of the Jim Hill Festival Builders Award is Jeff Lee, who has served as a volunteer and supporter of Saskatoon’s music community over the past 40 years. Lee served as a volunteer announcer, disc jockey and music programmer at CJUS-FM and CHSK-FM Radio at the University of Saskatchewan from 1981 to 1984. In the 1980s, he wrote columns covering the Saskatchewan music scene for Music Express and Trouser Press magazines and organized and promoted concerts by independent Canadian artists at the Broadway Theatre.
Upon the closure of U. of S. Campus Radio in 1985, Lee led a group of volunteers who founded the Community Radio Society of Saskatoon, Inc., which re-established community radio in Saskatoon. He wrote the CRTC Radio Licence Application for CFCR-FM. That station signed onto the FM radio dial in September of 1991 and has broadcast as Saskatoon’s community radio station continuously for the past 32 years. Lee served as President of the Community Radio Society of Saskatoon, Inc. from 1991 to 1999.
Lee served on the board of directors of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival Inc. from 1999 to 2006. He chaired the Festival Board’s Fundraising & Sponsorship Committee and Hiring Committee.
Lee served as a volunteer announcer at festival concerts, interviewed festival artists on radio and promoted the SaskTel Saskatchewan Jazz Festival on the “Jazz Fest Journal” and “Swing Shift” radio programs on CFCR-FM.
In his work life, Lee is a partner at the law firm of MLT Aikins LLP. He currently serves as a Bencher of the Law Society of Saskatchewan. He has practised law at MLT Aikins since 1987. MLT Aikins has been a sponsor of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival for over 25 years.
For additional information on these two awards, please visit our website at: www.saskjazz.com/about/awards/.
