Sure. First of all, the young performers competition had a history going back to the 1950s, with the singing stars of tomorrow and young performers competitions, so it really had a history. It's another part of that history that's gone away.
All the competition rounds were broadcast live over the air, over the course of a week. Everywhere I go in this country, people say, “I remember hearing your voice on the CBC on that day when you won the competition.” People remember it, because it was a whole week of exposure.
Being a winner in that has certainly opened up a lot of doors. It was a very prestigious competition by the time it was axed. I have to say that CBC also basically picked up almost every concert I did in this country for about two or three good years afterwards. Any time I was singing the Messiah with a certain choir or Elijah with this symphony, no matter where I was in the country, if I was doing a recital in Calgary or in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, the CBC was there to pick it up, either on local performance programs or what not.
I can tell you we're talking about a decrease of money going to American Federation of Musicians members. I know that my CBC pickups have really been reduced. I know from talking to a lot of choirs and orchestras that they're just not getting the CBC pickups for live recordings that they were two or three years ago. Keeping the same amount of funding going towards live recordings is not necessarily happening.
Just to wrap up, I know we've been talking about what we're losing with the losing of the CBC Radio Orchestra. It's not just that the CBC Radio Orchestra could afford to take a chance on doing an entire concert of new repertoire and new compositions that no orchestra in Canada can afford to do on a regular basis, but they also could afford to take a chance on young artists who don't have a marquee name.
I was asked on a number of occasions to join the CBC Radio Orchestra for different concerts. Unfortunately I wasn't able to work it into my schedule, and now I really regret that I didn't know that it would have been my last chance to do so.