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Philip Glass has won the Glenn Gould Prize.

Stressing the multimedia dimension of the prestigious $100,000 award, an international jury has named U.S. composer Philip Glass as winner of the 11th Glenn Gould Prize.

Famed for the minimalist style that marked his early career, Mr. Glass is a composer of film scores and operas as well as symphonies, and is perhaps best known in the popular imagination for creating the music for the 1982 film Koyaanisqatsi. The biennial Gould Prize, named for the Canadian pianist, media thinker and iconoclast, was established in 1987 to honour artists in that multi-dimensional mould, starting with Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer, but has also been presented to more traditional musical figures, including Yo-Yo Ma and Oscar Peterson.

The international prize is intended to honour a living artist who has elevated humanity with his or her work (although no woman has ever won). The 2013 laureate was experimental theatre director Robert Lepage. This year, the Glenn Gould Foundation, which runs the prize, doubled its value to $100,000. The winner also selects a protégé to win a $15,000 prize.

This year's 10-person international jury included writer Michael Ondaatje, filmmaker Sarah Polley and singer Petula Clark, and was chaired by music producer Bob Ezrin.

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