Conductor Raiskin renews vows with WSO through 2025-26 season

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This article was published 08/12/2021 (1747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra will make history next year and Daniel Raiskin has made sure he’ll play a part in it.

The Russian-born conductor received a contract extension from the WSO on Tuesday, ensuring he remains its music director through the 2025-26 season.

He likens his relationship with the orchestra as a marriage. The “dating” began in 2015 with the first of three WSO shows he guest-conducted, and the “wedding” occurred when he took on the music director role in 2018.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided the marriage with challenges, but he says the relationship has grown stronger; larger crowds for in-person shows this fall have proven that.

”For almost two years we were very far away from having a normal wedded life,” Raiskin says. “We’re absolutely delighted this year, we’ve already did 25 orchestra performances, masterworks, kids concerts, pops and opera and ballet. It really feels like a return to almost normal.

“It’s great to be able to commit for the longer term to an organization that is in a very special place and is comprised of special people, both the musicians and the staff… It felt very logical to continue on this journey together.”

The history-making begins March 13, 2022, when the WSO hosts Manitoba Remembers — A COVID Elegy, a free concert including performers from various genres that will be available to livestream. It will take place exactly two years after the WSO was forced to cease operations as the pandemic began to take its toll in Manitoba and around the world.

“We wanted to be true to our calling and give something back to the community, especially to those who have suffered so much from the COVID,” Raiskin says. “Many lost their loved ones… but there were also people who weren’t able to say goodbye to their loved ones who departed this world because of the COVID and the lack of memorial services and (being) unable to attend.”

Next up will be the WSO’s tour of the Netherlands, a five-concert series that takes place from May 1 to 11.

The tour, which will mark the WSO’s first performances in Europe, was to take place in May 2020, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the European country from the Nazis at the end of the Second World War.

Set to include dignitaries from Canada and the Netherlands, as well as veterans from the war, the tour was one of countless arts and entertainment events that were postponed or cancelled, owing to the pandemic.

The 2022 tour will centre around two concerts on significant Dutch holidays: National Remembrance Day, May 4, at Amsterdam’s 135-year-old Concertgebouw, and Liberation Day, May 5, in Rotterdam. Arnhem, Utrecht and Heerlen are also on the tour itinerary.

It will be a proud moment for Raiskin, who has called the Netherlands home for the past 32 years, since leaving the Soviet Union in 1989. He has been a Dutch citizen for the past 27 years.

“For me the significance to taking the WSO to my new home is a very personal thing as well,” he says.

Raiskin will also hold the baton when the WSO marks its 75th anniversary during the 2022-23 season, and while plans are still being finalized, he looks forward to the musical celebrations.

“I first conducted the orchestra shortly before it celebrated its 70th anniversary and now I’m involved in preparations for its 75th anniversary,” he says. “There’s even a place for me in its 75-year-old history, which is great.”

Alan.Small@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @AlanDSmall