SOCAN members Bob Ezrin and Denis Gougeon have received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards for 2025, while SOCAN member Jeremy Dutcher has similarly been honoured with the National Arts Centre Award for this year. The laureates will be celebrated at two events in Ottawa, the final one of which – the Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards Show – takes place at the National Arts Centre on June 14, 2025.
The annual Governor General’s Performing Arts Awards recognize the excellence and career achievement of Canadian performing artists, including actors, filmmakers, dancers, and musicians.
Bob Ezrin, a member of the Order of Canada, is a legend in the music industry as a producer and entrepreneur. He’s worked on seminal recordings and with artists such as Pink Floyd, U2, Peter Gabriel, Rod Stewart, Taylor Swift, Lou Reed, and Aerosmith, among many others, in a storied career.
Composer and music educator Denis Gougeon has a catalogue of more than 100 works in a variety of genres and styles, and his influence has been felt across Canada and beyond. His pieces include music for solo instruments, voice, chamber groups, orchestra, theatre, ballet, and opera. He’s received numerous awards, and multiple commissions, including works for the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.
The National Arts Centre Award recognizes work of an extraordinary nature by an individual artist or company in the past performance year. Composer, performer, singer-songwriter, language carrier, ethnomusicologist, and activist Jeremy Dutcher is also a classically trained tenor. A Wolastoqiyik member of the Tobique First Nation in northwest New Brunswick, Dutcher makes music that incorporates his classical training, among other genres, and Wolastoqiyik culture and language. He looks to preserve his culture, and inspire younger generations of Indigenous people.