TORONTO: Pierre Cossette, who founded the modern Grammy Awards and produced the globally televised music awards ceremony for 35 years, died of congestive heart failure at a Montreal hospital. He was 85.

The Canadian producer’s death was announced on September 11 in Santa Monica, by the Recording Academy. “It is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our dear friend and father of the Grammy Awards, Pierre Cossette,” Academy president and CEO Neil Portnow said.

Cossette, a native of Valleyfield, Quebec, was an accomplished television and theatre producer who managed some of American pop music’s most influential early bands. But he is best known for guiding the Grammy Awards from its early days as a stuffy, unsuccessful production to the industry institution it has become.

The Grammy Museum, which opened in December 2008, is called the Pierre Cossette Center and contains a corner exhibit dedicated to him.