Artist Achievement Award
2023 Winner—39th Annual Arts Awards

Cheryl Hickman is the General and Artistic Director of Opera on the Avalon, a company she founded in 2009. She established Opera on the Avalon's Creation Investment Fund, which resulted in Atlantic Canada's first Grand Opera Commission that helped Opera on the Avalon to win numerous awards, including ArtsNL's Artist of the Year in 2017. Her tenure at Opera on the Avalon has seen critical acclaim for her bold and challenging programming, particularly in terms of her approach to turning history into art. As both a performer and an administrator, she has consistently championed women artists. Hickman also mounts Atlantic, Canada's only summer opera festival, held every year in May and June, which is sponsored in part by RBC's Emerging Artists fund. In the past seven years, Hickman has led successful negotiations with provincial and federal governments and agencies to secure significant investment towards increasing access to the arts.