Streamlined new-music fest makes masterful return

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/02/2023 (1261 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg New Music Festival roared back to life this year, welcomed like a long-lost friend after being muzzled by the global pandemic for the past three years.

The eagerly anticipated celebration of contemporary music was outright cancelled in 2021, while audiences last year witnessed a compact, three-show live streamed version of the weeklong event, with 138 diehards attending opening night as COVID-19 numbers rose.

This year’s WNMF featured what now feels like a whopping six in-person performances presented Jan. 26 through Feb. 3 allowing fans to happily experience their first “new normal” festival in years.

This palpable sense of relief in all parties, including WNMF co-curators, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra maestro/WNMF artistic director Daniel Raiskin, WSO composer-in-residence Haralabos (Harry) Stafylakis, guest artists, musicians and audience members alike ran like a leitmotif throughout the week.

However, it’s no small point that joy and wonder also returned to the hall in full force this year, with past WNMF programming often creating its own narrative that 21st century music needs to be riddled with postmodern angst and/or despair to be considered good art. In many ways, this year’s fest channelled the spirit of its earliest, halcyon days, then spearheaded by co-founder Bramwell Tovey with composer Glenn Buhr, and seemingly rejuvenated by its ability to return after several extraordinarily difficult years.

Nowhere did this become more abundantly clear than with two brilliant, sold-out shows: Music for Airports (WNMF2: Jan. 29) and Kinan Azmeh’s CityBand, (WNMF3: Jan. 31), the latter showcasing Syrian-born clarinettist Azmeh joined by Kyle Sanna (guitar); Josh Meyers (bass); and John Hadfield (drums/percussion), performed at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada.

The cavernous hall, including historic aircraft flanking the audience, became a visually stunning backdrop for the performers, with many audience members seen giddily snapping selfies with vintage planes before and after the performances. That this writer could still be enthralled by Azmeh’s artistry seated next to an (inert) nuclear warhead also spoke volumes (first time for everything). The jaw-dropping setting provided an apt metaphor for not only the inherent joy of discovery in new music — as those daring aviation pioneers first dreamt of flight — but also the WNMF’s once more taking wing after being grounded too long.

Another early highlight became the local premiere of Toronto-based troupe Red Sky Performance, renowned for its contemporary Indigenous programming during Ancestral Tales (WNMF1: Jan 28) in Adizokan. This respectful and welcome nod to greater cultural diversity and inclusion showcased artistic director Sandra Laronde’s choreography set to a highly sophisticated electro-acoustic score by Brandon-born Métis composer Eliot Britton.

The profound image of four Indigenous dancers performing in fundamentally white, European-derived musical compositions, along with Nunavut-based throat boxer Nelson Tagoona magically fusing traditional Inuit throat singing with beatboxing rhythms packed an emotional punch unlike no other, as a living testament to the power of art to heal, and reconcile the past.

Another became a deeply poignant tribute, including projected archival photos during that same program to the late Tovey with the revered British conductor/composer’s Sky Chase. While Tovey left an inestimable mark on other orchestras around the globe — not least of all the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra between 2000 and 2018, following 12 years as WSO music director — the WNMF will always owe a debt of gratitude to this much-missed maestro.

A newly streamlined, less-is-more format (note to the WNMF: please do this again next year) created particularly effective pacing.

Now offering six evening programs with Monday and Thursday nights off, the structure allowed listeners to fully digest and absorb each program, returning hungry for more.

Kicking off the entire week with participants from the WNMF Composers Institute (WNMF Showcase: Launchpad, Jan. 26) set the overall tone. It also became humbling to realize that the nine twentysomething composers in the free opening concert have never known a time without this festival, founded in 1992.

Several masterfully orchestrated works by this year’s distinguished guest composer, Finland’s Kalevi Aho, were heard, with the festival bookended by the world premiere of his Winnipeg Fanfare, (WNMF1), personally commissioned by Raiskin, and the Canadian premiere of his Symphonic Dances, (WNMF5: Feb. 3) that ended the week with a bang.

The WSO rightfully showcased its own world-class musicians, including cellist Yuri Hooker and bassist Meredith Johnson in Michael Oesterle’s Parlour Games (WNMF2), as well as bassoonist Kathryn Brooks who dazzled during Aho’s Double Concerto for Two Bassoons and Orchestra, joined by Dutch bassoonist Bram van Sambeek (WNMF4: Feb. 1).

Stafylakis also brought his customary cinematic flair to the stage with the world premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 1: Mythos performed by American pianist Jenny Lin (WNMF1); a compelling deeply personal work steeped in influences from his own Greek heritage.

Polycoro Chamber Choir treated us to three eclectic works at the aviation museum, although more vocal music would have been welcomed — how we have missed it these past three years.

Still more work needs to be done with gender parity (yes, I realize this sentiment is decidedly binary, polarizing lightning rod for controversy) however only seven of the 17 — that’s 41 per cent — composers were women, not counting the heavily male-dominated Composers Institute. One of those includes Canadian dynamo Kelly-Marie Murphy, whose world premiere of Machines, Mannequins, and Monsters (WNMF4) enthralled, performed by the SHHH!! Ensemble, comprised of Edana Higham (piano) and Zac Pulak (percussion).

One would be remiss not to end a wrap-up with a final bravo and congratulations to maestro Raiskin, Stafylakis, all the guest artists, and most of all, the tireless WSO musicians for their passion and fierce artistry in bringing this world-renowned festival to life in all its guises from year to year, now firmly buckled up and ready to soar towards 2024.

holly.harris@shaw.ca