Pegi Cecconi Lifetime Achievement Award
Pegi Cecconi, this year’s recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from Music Publisher Canada (MPC), has played a hugely significant role in shaping the Canadian music industry over the course of the past 40-plus years, much of which she spent as Vice President at SRO Management and associated indie label Anthem Entertainment. She has also been tireless in advocating for the right of songwriters to be paid fairly for their work given their primacy in the music business food chain.
During her time with SRO/Anthem, she was influential in the national and international success of artists like Rock and Roll and Canadian Music Hall of Famers, Rush; Steven Page (Barenaked Ladies); The Tea Party; Gowan; Max Webster; Matthew Good; Molly Johnson and songwriter Ian Thomas along with a number of international artists including Van Halen, Extreme and Queensryche, management clients of company President/CEO Ray Danniels.
“Always a force to be reckoned with, her loyalty, foresight, and passion for what she does have benefitted some of our country’s finest artists and helped them to garner international acclaims,” noted Allan Reid, President and CEO, CARAS/The JUNO Awards & MusiCounts.
A renaissance woman in every sense of the phrase with an astute understanding of the business of music and a reputation as a tough negotiator, Cecconi involved herself in every aspect of the company including music publishing (Mark-Cain Music Publishing), management, booking, recording, merchandising, video production, master licensing and legal. “You’re looking at someone who rips through contracts like a Harlequin Romance novel,” she told music journalist Nick Krewen for the JUNO Awards blog Women in Music.
Over the years, she has also devoted herself to the greater good of the Canadian music industry serving lengthy terms on the board of directors of CMRRA, CIRPA (CIMA), FACTOR (including Chair and Treasurer) and the Independent Digital Licensing Agency. In the mid-80s, she also served on the board of the U.S.-based Professional Association of Licensed Music Merchandisers.
She remained one of the unsung heroes of the music industry until relatively recently. At the 2020 JUNOs, she was awarded the prestigious Walt Grealis Special Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals whose work has significantly impacted the growth and development of the Canadian music industry. It now shares an honoured place with her two previous JUNOs, both in the category of DVD of the Year, as a producer on the Rush projects Rush in Rio (2004) and Beyond the Lighted Stage (2011). In 2015, she was honoured with the Brian Chater Leadership Award from CIMA and the Brian Chater Pioneer Award from the Music Managers Forum.
Over the years, Cecconi would become a familiar face and ebullient presence at various industry gatherings and as a delegate at international music conferences like MUSEXPO in Mexico and MIDEM in Cannes, France. Bill Werde, Billboard magazine’s influential editorial director at the time, first met, and became friends with, Cecconi at the little club La Chunga, a popular hangout for many of the VIPs in attendance at MIDEM. “Pegi is one of those full-of-life types that this business seems so great at attracting,” Werde wrote as part of his coverage in 2013, recalling a previous year when they had “danced and drank and laughed until we fell over.“ Pegi Cecconi’s friends and associates would have smiled knowingly at his comments.