Vivian Barclay, a member of SOCAN’s Board of Directors, was honoured by African Music Week with the organization’s first-ever Trailblazer Award, presented on Oct. 22 during the Queens Summit event, at the Small World Music Centre in downtown Toronto. SOCAN congratulates Vivian on this great achievement!
It’s only the latest accomplishment for Barclay, the General Manager of Warner Chappell Music Canada. A classically trained musician, she’s composed music for television commercials and won awards for her digital audio editing talents. She’s worked as a radio programmer and on-air host, in artist management, publicity/promotion, and as a programmer for conferences/festivals. Barclay sits on the Boards of SOCAN, Music Publishers Canada, the Toronto Music Advisory Committee, the Toronto Council for the National Association of Black Female Executives in Music & Entertainment, as well as Phemphat Entertainment Group – producers of the all-female Honey Jam Showcase, a non-profit organization which provides mentoring opportunities for artists.
The sixth annual African Music Week (AMW) festival took place Oct. 22-23, 2021, continuing its mission to heighten the understanding of Africans and people of African descent through music and culture, with a series of events in Toronto. African musicians and music industry executives from throughout the African Diaspora gather at AMW each year for both the conference and showcase components, to expose artists to resources, networks, and platforms, while providing long-term mentoring to help launch and maintain careers in the global entertainment industry. Participants this year included TÖME, Idahams, Master T, and Dalton Higgins.