NEWS RELEASE ORILLIA MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORY ************************* Following on the success of last year’s first combined arts and heritage awards night, the Orillia & District Arts Council (ODAC) and Orillia Museum of Art & History (OMAH) are already planning the second annual Orillia Regional Arts and Heritage Awards.
On Nov. 25, 2020, the two organizations will come together once again to celebrate the best and brightest from the sector, either virtually or in person.
Members from both organizations have been working behind the scenes on the logistics and are excited to announce this year’s 2020 award categories:
Education in Arts, Culture and Heritage
Emerging Artist
Heritage: Restoration, Renovation and Publication
Event in Arts, Culture and Heritage
Qennefer Browne Achievement Award
Education in the Arts, Culture and Heritage Award looks to recognize an educator, not necessarily a teacher by profession, whose knowledge and teaching skills inspire others to pursue their interest in the arts and heritage.
Emerging Artist Award recognizes an individual of any age who is in the early years (under five years) of launching a career in the arts. Nominees can be pursuing any genre of art including, but not limited to, visual arts, performance arts, literary arts and many more.
Heritage: Restoration, Renovation and Publication Award recognizes an individual or group who brought to life regional history through a physical restoration or creation of a permanent public record.
Event in the Arts, Culture and Heritage Award looks to honour an individual, organization, or corporation for their part in organizing a single or annual event that showcases the region’s creative talent or cultural heritage.
The Qennefer Browne Achievement Award recognizes an individual or group of individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to the cultural life of their community. Nominees may include artists, historians, volunteers, cultural organizations and donors. This award honours Qennefer Browne, who gave much of herself to support both arts and heritage organizations within the region.
To nominate an individual or group for one of these prestigious awards, visit the portal at www.orilliaartscouncil.ca/awards. This year, all nominations will be gathered through this online portal, eliminating the need for hard copies. There will be no hard copies of nominations accepted.
To help with this process and encourage nominations, a nominating committee has been formed with representatives from across the sector and region. Members of this committee will be reaching out to the community and facilitating the process.
“We are excited to be able to honour our creatives and our heritage sector safely, in these pandemic times,” said nominating committee spokesperson Anna Proctor. “We feel that having all the nominations submitted virtually and potentially having a virtual awards ceremony will keep everyone safe while not missing out on a year of great achievements.”
The nomination deadline is Oct. 2, 2020.
Together, OMAH and ODAC serve the communities of Rama, Ramara, Oro-Medonte, Severn, and the City of Orillia. We are committed to recognizing the valuable contribution artists, historians, educators, event organizers and supporters make to the vibrancy of these communities and their citizens.
This year’s awards ceremony is presented by Accutrac Capital Solutions and the City of Orillia.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
