2025 NAC Bursary Competition Awards Over $28,000

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April 23, 2025 – OTTAWA – Eight talented music students aged 18 to 26 with ties to the National Capital Region competed this week for a chance to win prizes worth more than $28,000 at the 44th annual National Arts Centre Orchestra Bursary Competition.

This year’s winners are:

The 2025 NAC Orchestra Bursary ($9,000) – Audrey Morris, harp
The Crabtree Foundation Award ($5,000) – Bennett Van Barr, violin
The Friends of the NAC Orchestra Award ($3,500) – Ines Doulet, violin
The NAC Orchestra Vic Pomer Award ($3,000) – Alicia Ingalls, violin
The Dorothy M. Horwood Award ($2,500) – Aidan Fleet, cello
The Friends of the NAC Orchestra Evelyn Greenberg Award ($2,000) – Inigo Gauthier-Mamaril, cello
The Piccolo Prix ($1,500) – Maria Krstic, violin
Honourable mention ($500) – Sarah Als, viola
The Sturdevant Prize for Orchestra Excerpts ($1,500) – Bennett Van Barr, violin

Visit nac-cna.ca/orchestra/bursary/awards to learn more about each award.

This year’s competition was open to players of stringed instruments (violin, viola, cello, double bass, and harp) studying music in preparation for a career as a professional orchestral musician. The jurors evaluated the semi-finalists and finalists on their performances of short orchestral excerpts and movements from a concerto, sonata, or unaccompanied work written for their instrument.

Audrey Morris is the first harpist in 15 years to win the competition’s top award. She says she wanted her performance to shine a spotlight on her instrument.

“I wanted to showcase that there’s a lot more you can do with the instrument than just play pretty music. I wanted to show that it can be virtuosic and everything that any other instrument can be.”

Morris is finishing her second year of music studies at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto and says she aspires to play harp professionally in an orchestra.

“It can be really hard as a student. It can be really easy to get discouraged, but this is something that I think will definitely help me in the future and make me feel excited to get back into the practice room.”

Born and raised in Ottawa, Morris studied with local harpists Michelle Gott and Natalie Hoffmann and is currently a student of Judy Loman at the Glenn Gould School.

Aidan Fleet (cello) received the first-ever Dorothy M. Horwood Award. Created in 2022 by her estate, the $2,500 award honours Horwood, whose love of the arts brought her to the NAC well into her nineties. Bennett Van Barr (violin) earned the $1,500 Sturdevant Prize for Orchestral Excerpts, presented since 2016 in honour of Douglas (Pace) Sturdevant. This year marked the first award presentation since Sturdevant, the NAC Orchestra’s Principal Trumpet for 23 years, passed away in January.

The jurors for this year’s competition were Bursary Committee Chair Christina Cameron (non-voting); four NAC Orchestra musicians (Emily Kruspe, upper strings; Marc-André Riberdy, lower strings; Stephanie Morin, winds; Steven van Gulik, brass and percussion); and two external judges (Geneviève Petit, violinist and instructor at the Conservatoire de musique de Gatineau, and Angela Schwarzkopf, Juno Award-winning harpist).

Past recipients of the NAC Orchestra Bursary Award include Luca Ortolani (oboe, 2024); Bryan Cheng (cello, 2016); Kerson Leong (violin, 2013), and current NAC Orchestra members Leah Roseman (violin, 1990); Steven van Gulik (trumpet, 1993); and Darren Hicks (bassoon, 2012).

ABOUT THE NAC ORCHESTRA BURSARY COMPETITION

The first National Arts Centre Orchestra Bursary Competition was held in 1981. The prime objective of the competition is to encourage the pursuit of excellence on the part of young instrumentalists aspiring to orchestral careers. Each year, a jury identifies deserving recipients through audition and competition.

The Bursary was created in 1979 by members of the NAC Orchestra as a gesture of appreciation to the audiences who had been so supportive of it during its first decade. It is meant to provide recognition and financial support to help further develop young musicians with connections to the National Capital Region (NCR). Funding for the award came initially came from two sources: the NAC Orchestra Bursary Fund created in 1979 by the members of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the NAC Orchestra Trust (originally the Capital Trust founded in 1932 to benefit the Ottawa Philharmonic Society which on its demise in 1970 transferred the income to the NAC). It is now known as the NAC Orchestra Trust Fund.

In 1981, one prize of $1,000—the NAC Orchestra Bursary—was awarded. Thanks to the Fund’s growth and the generosity of private organizations and individuals in subsequent years, prizes total more than $28,000.

The 2026 competition will be open to wind, brass, and percussion students.

ABOUT CANADA’S NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE ORCHESTRA

Canada’s National Arts Centre (NAC) Orchestra is praised for the passion and clarity of its performances, its visionary learning and engagement programs, and its unwavering support of Canadian creativity. The NAC Orchestra is based in Ottawa, Canada’s national capital, and has grown into one of the country’s most acclaimed and dynamic ensembles since its founding in 1969. Under the leadership of Music Director Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra reflects the fabric and values of Canada, engaging communities from coast to coast to coast through inclusive programming, compelling storytelling, and innovative partnerships.

The NAC Orchestra has also established a rich discography, including many of the over 80 orchestral works it has commissioned over the years. These include:

Poema: Ad Astra, the first album in a four-part series exploring tone poems by Richard Strauss
Two Orchestras, One Symphony, a grand-scale interpretation of the late Quebec composer Jacques Hétu’s monumental Symphony No. 5, produced in collaboration with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Truth in Our Time, including the premiere recording of Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 13, commissioned by the NAC Orchestra
Gabriel Dharmou’s the fog in our poise, a 2025 Juno nominee for Classical Composition of the Year (from Vestiges d’une fable)
Clara – Robert – Johannes: a multi-year, multi-album exploration of the music of Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, featuring pianists Angela Hewitt, Stewart Goodyear, and Gabriela Montero
Ana Sokolović’s Golden slumbers kiss your eyes, winner of the 2019 Juno for Classical Composition of the Year (from the 2019 Juno-nominated New Worlds)
The Bounds of Our Dreams, a 2020 Juno nominee for Classical Album of the Year (Large Ensemble) featuring Alain Lefèvre
Life Reflected, which includes My Name is Amanda Todd by the late Jocelyn Morlock (winner of the 2018 Juno for Classical Composition of the Year)
A recording of Mozart piano concertos with Angela Hewitt, winner of the 2015 Juno for Classical Album of the Year: Large Ensemble or Soloist(s) with Large Ensemble Accompaniment

ABOUT THE NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE

The National Arts Centre is Canada’s bilingual, multi-disciplinary home for the performing arts. The NAC presents, creates, produces, and co-produces performing arts programming in various streams — the NAC Orchestra, Dance, English Theatre, French Theatre, Indigenous Theatre, and Popular Music and Variety — and nurtures the next generation of audiences and artists from across Canada. The NAC is located in the National Capital Region on the unceded territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin Nation.