RUSH AWARDED CANADA'S HIGHEST ARTISTIC PRIZE:

Rush awarded Canada's highest artistic prize, effectively putting the band on par with poets and concert pianists by John Semley March 6, 2012
Toronto prog-rock trio Rush may be something of an inside joke, treasured by Canadians with a taste for Geddy Lee's falsetto vocals, Alex Lifeson's noodly riffs, and Neil Peart's 11-minute drum solos, yet largely misunderstood abroad as being too nerdy or something. Indeed, fans have been lamenting Rush's notable absence in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for years, as if Canada needed some dusty museum of rock history for validation. Who needs the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame when you can have a Governor General's Performing Arts Award?
Awarded to Canadians for distinguished work in the arts, the prestigious award—with recipients announced earlier today in Calgary—pitches Rush straight into the ranks of highest-order Canadian artists like Gordon Lightfoot, Oscar Peterson, Leonard Cohen, Christopher Plummer, and Cirque De Soleil. According to the CBC, this year's other winners include Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, Newfoundland-born writer and comic Mary Walsh, and classical concert pianist Janina Fialkowska. Good for them, and good for all. But there's something especially terrific about a band that wrote a song called “By-Tor And The Snow Dog” being rewarded with a nation's highest artistic honour. And it comes with a free commemorative medallion! And $25,000 Canadian dollars! So cue up Grace Under Pressure and raise your star-child flags, Rusheteers. Today is your Bastille Day.
ArticleLink: www.avclub.com/toronto/articles/rush-awarded-canadas-highest-artistic-prize-effect,70437/