New scholarship honours community leader

“Music really was a connecting thread throughout his life,” recalls Ann Tanner of her late husband Ed Oscapella, who is the namesake of a new music scholarship at UVic.

Oscapella, who died of cancer on April 22, 2001, was coordinator of UVic’s New Media Conference, executive producer of ceremonies and the cultural component of the 1994 Commonwealth Games, and a driving force behind Victoria’s Harbour Festival.

“Ed trained as a concert pianist at U of T and went on to set up an artists’ management agency devoted to the management of classical artists,” says Tanner. “Liona Boyd was one of his first clients. In fact, it was the general manager position at the Vancouver Symphony that brought us to the West Coast. So we knew that whatever way we chose to honour his memory it would have to involve music.”

After Oscapella died, his friends, family, and members of the community donated funds to the UVic school of music in his memory. These contributions were added to the Edward Philip Oscapella Scholarship in Music when Tanner formally established the fund.

The first scholarship will be awarded in the 2002/2003 year to a student pursuing a performance degree in music with an emphasis on strings or piano.

“Ed was a mentor throughout his career and was an inspiration to a lot of people,” says Tanner. “If this scholarship can somehow continue that inspiration then we’ll have done just the right thing by establishing it.”

For more information about the Edward Philip Oscapella Scholarship contact Peter Brimacombe at 721-6305.