Flutist Robert Cram is the inaugural winner of the Oskar Morawetz Award. (John H. MacDonald)

A new award created in honour of one of Canada's leading composers of contemporary music — Oskar Morawetz — has been won by an Ottawa-based flutist.

Robert Cram is the first recipient of the Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence, which honours an outstanding Canadian performer of classical music.

Montreal-born Cram, currently a professor at the University of Ottawa, won a Juno in 2004 for his recording of the Flute Concerto by Jacques Hétu.

He was the principal flutist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa for 23 years and has had classical pieces written for him by composers such as Harry Somers, Gilles Tremblay, Steven Gellman, Patrick Cardy and Melissa Hui.

Cram also is founder of the Pierrot Concerts, an organization devoted to developing contemporary Canadian music, and directed its Somers Recording Project, which resulted in a CD collection of works by the late composer, Harry Somers.

He is passionate about the need to play work by Canadian classical composers.

"If you are a performer and you are not performing work by Canadian composers, what are you doing," he told CBC News.

He remembers Morawetz as direct and honest in his music and said he frequently played the late composer's work.

"Here we have a composer and his family deciding to create an award for performers. They're celebrating the musicians that take their music to the public," Cram said.

Cram will celebrate his win Friday with a performance in Ottawa of a flute concerto by another Canadian composer, Patrick Cardy, who died in 2005. With the support of Cardy's family, he has reduced the work, originally 35 minutes, to 23 minutes, to make it more likely the piece will be played in public.

"Flute concertos don't tend to be the meat of the concert, much as I would like them to be," he said. "This concerto was too long for most contexts and shortening it makes it easier for a conductor to include in a balanced program."

Morawetz was an internationally celebrated composer who created more than 100 orchestral and chamber works.

A two-time Juno winner for classical composition, his works have been performed by prominent artists such as Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Glenn Gould, Yo-Yo Ma, Maureen Forrester and Ben Heppner.

Cram will receive his award Oct. 16 in Ottawa.

The new award is being managed by the Ontario Arts Council with support from a private donor.