Festival opener takes listeners on sonic journey

On one of the most bone-chilling nights this year, 454 die-hard Winnipeg New Music Festival fans braved the elements as the annual rite of winter roared back to life with its first official program, Sunrise.

Co-curated by Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra music director Daniel Raiskin, who led Friday’s 115-minute (including intermission) program, and WSO composer-in-residence Haralabos (Harry) Stafylakis, the contemporary music fest, offering a series of six evening concerts plus various daytime satellite events, runs through Thursday.

The Montreal-born, New York-based Stafylakis wraps up his illustrious 10-year tenure with the WSO this season, passing the torch to his newly named successor, award-winning Canadian composer Kelly-Marie Murphy, in September.

This year’s overarching theme explores the impact of artificial intelligence and digital culture on today’s world — an inescapable truth that has infiltrated even the venerated symphonic hall with its concerts fuelled by human breath and body.

The opening bill, composed of four works, provided the first taste of this year’s distinguished guest composer’s artistry. Christopher Theofanidis (in attendance) is Stafylakis’s former composition teacher; his evocative works have been performed by leading orchestras worldwide.

Rainbow Body (2000), inspired by medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen’s soulful music, begins simply with tremolos in the strings, taut with tension. Their first rendering of its haunting, chant-like theme evokes the spine-tingling resonance of a centuries-old cathedral, shimmering with overtones and underpinned by the basses’s meditative drones.

From there, listeners are taken on a cinematic journey of stitched-together musical themes and motives, punctuated by muted trumpets and horn outbursts. Raiskin sensitively led his players through to the climactic finish, driven by pounding timpani strikes and the undeniably startling effect of musicians shouting from their chairs.

American virtuoso percussionist Lisa Pegher’s electrifying interpretation of Jennifer Higdon’s Percussion Concerto (2005) surely ranks among the greatest all-time performances in the WNMF’s 35-year history, recalling another dynamo, Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and her blistering appearances on this same stage.

The powerhouse musician — further showcased during Saturday’s offering, WNMF2 Lisa Pegher: A.I. Rhythmic Evolution — immediately got down to business with her opening, hushed marimba solo, creating a deliciously antiphonal effect as the WSO’s own percussion-section backbenchers shared the limelight with her as though in dialogue.

She further mesmerized with her fierce concentration and deft handling of her double mallets, performing on marimba and vibraphone. She bolted several times across the stage to her second large battery of (mostly) unpitched percussion instruments, including temple blocks, splash cymbals, kick and side drums, leaving many WSO musicians agape.

The 2010 Pulitzer Prize-winning Higdon wisely provides short repose with her one-movement piece’s quieter, lyrical central section, featuring Pegher simultaneously bowing and striking her vibraphone bars, before building again to a thunderous cadenza while the maestro held taut rein.

It’s not often that one wishes a performance could last forever, but this one proved that exception, well-deserving of its roaring ovation, loud whistles and demand for two curtain calls for the soloist.

Another highlight was James MacMillan’s Concerto for Orchestra: Ghosts (2023/24), a masterfully orchestrated work that includes a snippet from Beethoven’s Ghost Trio, as well as evocations of Debussy’s flute, viola and harp trio.

The roughly 25-minute, through-composed work spotlights individual players, including concertmaster Karl Stobbe, and smaller ensembles throughout its kaleidoscopic journey packed with surprises, including relatively rare, ear-pleasing pairings of instruments, before ending on a delicate note.

The program rounded out with Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Reading the Wind (2013), commemorating the centenary of Stravinsky’s ground breaking ballet Rite of Spring, which sent shockwaves throughout the classical music world after its 1913 Parisian première.

Described by the composer during her onstage introduction as her second work for orchestra, the eclectic piece brims with a potpourri of ideas, ranging from textural effects, including snap string pizzicato and pungent dissonances in the brass, as well as an effective, sonorous chorale. Admittedly a more youthful piece in nature, it nevertheless shows the promise of a creative artist who clearly has something to say.

In days of old, the WNMF — especially an opening night — would be packed to the rafters in spite of the city’s not unfamiliar January arctic blasts. Not that many years ago, a sold-out house huddled together in sub-zero temperatures on the frozen Assiniboine River to partake in one of its most adventuresome programs to date.

While eschewing any accusations of ageism, and noting that two WNMF concerts are indeed currently sold out (WNMF2 and WNMF4), the question of whether the festival’s seemingly now mostly older audience members prefer to stay in their warm homes, or may be more willing to venture out on a weekend evening as per usual concert going practice, remains an imponderable point.

However, it’s one that should be thoughtfully considered, as arts organizations around the planet continue rebuilding their houses with those proverbial “bums in seats” in our post-pandemic world.

The Winnipeg New Music Festival continues Tuesday at 7 p.m. with WNMF3: Beyond Horizons at the Centennial Concert Hall. For tickets or further info, visit www.wnmf.ca.

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