The Brad Cheeseman Group was awarded the prestigious TD Grand Prix Jazz Award at this year’s Festival International de Jazz de Montreal. The prize features recording time, future festival appearances, prize money, and included a feature performance on the festival’s TD Stage. Each year, the festival selects ten Canadian artists to compete for the award and, after careful consideration, selects a winner based on their festival performances. In addition to the Brad Cheeseman Group, this year’s competition included Tara Kannangara (Ontario), Lisanne Tremblay (Quebec), Tertio (Quebec), Samuel Bonnet (Quebec), Autobahn (Ontario), Annie Dominique (Quebec), FOG Brass Band (Ontario) and the Simon Denizart Trio (Quebec).
The band—including guitarist Robert Chapman, pianist Sam Kogen, drummer Marito Marques and saxophonist Chelsea McBride—delivered the exciting competition-deciding performance on July 4 at the Club Jazz Casino stage, performing selections from the band’s award-winning self-titled album for hundreds of enthusiastic festival-goers. Later that night, Brad received a call from the festival letting him know the good news. At the festival’s press conference, Cheeseman stated that “to be here at all, especially with nine other fantastic artists, is a huge honour and to get this recognition is incredible.” The band later delivered a concluding performance on the festival’s TD Stage on July 5.
