Bernard Gilbert and Amélie Duceppe win the 2023 Cultural Management Awards

After studying French literature at Université Laval, Bernard Gilbert began his career as general manager of CKRL, a community radio station in Quebec, before taking over as the manager of Périscope, a contemporary creation theater. He directed the first Carrefour international de théâtre de Québec in 1992, a festival that is recognized for its quality and influence. In 2013, he created the Maison de la littérature, which was inaugurated in 2015 inside a historic church in Old Québec. This unique concept houses a public library, writers’ rooms, a comic strip workshop, a creative studio, a resident writer’s apartment, and a literary scene. It received over 100,000 visitors in its opening year.

In 2017, Bernard Gilbert dedicates himself to the establishment of Le Diamant, a new $60 million creation and presentation venue initiated by Robert Lepage in Quebec City. In his role as general manager and programming director, he planned the operations, implemented the financing of operations, finalized the governance, recruited the team and launched its programming, just before the pandemic. He left Le Diamant in 2021, after having consolidated the programming and funding activities.

While presenting the Career Award to Bernard Gilbert, the jury drew attention to “an exceptional career dedicated to the management of the arts in all its forms, in Quebec and abroad.”

A graduate of HEC Montréal with an MA in Management of Cultural Enterprises, Amélie Duceppe began her career in the film industry, before moving on to the video production sector. In 2016, she cut her teeth at Duceppe as a project manager tasked with renewing and rejuvenating theater audiences which had been dwindling since 10 years.

Next, as deputy general manager, she handled the process that led to the selection of a new artistic management, before taking over the company in 2018. There were many tasks at hand: repositioning the company's image, optimizing public relations, opening up to diversity, updating the pricing, developing a new strategy for financial and eco-responsibility management. The results speak for themselves: after 6 years of work, the number of admissions increased from 80,000 to 132,000, own-source revenue from $2.4 million to $3.7 million, and the company’s budget from $4 million to $7 million.

While presenting the Young Cultural Manager Award to Amélie Duceppe, the jury noted that she “greatly succeeded in reviving a struggling organization and laying the sustainable foundations for a rejuvenated, strong and unifying institution.”