What’s up: Poetry, music and designs

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/04/2023 (1248 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Come face to face with Bloody Jack

Thursday, 7:30 p.m.
Muriel Richarson Auditorium, Winnipeg Art Galley
Admission: Pay what you can

Do you know the ballad of Bloody Jack?

John (Bloody Jack) Krafchenko was a notorious, charismatic outlaw from the turn of the 20th century who emigrated to Manitoba from Romania. He started his life of crime as a kid in Plum Coulee, nicking watches and bicycles, before moving on to robbing banks as an adult. He moved through England, the United States, Germany, France, Italy and Russia, hitting banks as he went.

Krafchenko got married, settled back down in Plum Coulee and, uh, kept robbing banks. And then, one fateful day, the robber became a murderer when he shot and killed a bank manager on the street in the sleepy Manitoba town. Krafchenko was later jailed and hanged for the crime at Winnpeg’s Vaughan Street Jail in 1914.

Krafchenko’s wild story inspired the 1984 book Bloody Jack by Manitoban poet Dennis Cooley. And now, Cooley’s book serves as the basis for a new song cycle of the same name by composer Michael Matthews, which makes its première tonight at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Presented by GroundSwell and Hard Thread Collective and sponsored by Flipside Opera & Art Song Collective, the 14 songs comprising Bloody Jack will be performed live by soprano Dawn Bruch-Wiens and pianist Laura Loewen, and will be accompanied by imagery from filmmaker Aidan Ritchie. The evening will also feature a historical discussion led by Cooley, Matthews and historian Kristen Treusch.

Admission is pay what you can/how you can. For more information, visit gswell.ca.

— Jen Zoratti

Poets riff on joy at Writes of Spring poetry reading

McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park
Saturday, 2 p.m.
Free

National Poetry Month once again closes out with a joyous reading featuring poets published in the April 29 Writes of Spring feature, which will be published in Saturday’s Free Press.

The eighth poetry reading takes place at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location, and will be co-hosted by Writes of Spring editors Ariel Gordon and Sally Ito. The theme of this year’s reading is “joy,” and featured poets, which include Jess Woolford, Hazel Aduna, Sarah Klassen, Abiola Regan and others, will offer their interpretations in verse at the event, which takes place at 2 p.m.

There’s no charge to attend; for those who can’t make it, the event will also be streamed live on McNally Robinson’s YouTube channel (and available for viewing going forward, as well).

For more information, including a complete list of poets who will be reading, see wfp.to/02f.

— Ben Sigurdson

JAGD Quartet has the world on their strings

Sunday, 2 p.m.
Winnipeg Art Gallery
Tickets $42.80, $21.70 (under 30), $5.88 (under 12) at wmcwpg.ca

Pop has had the Jackson 5 and country has Willie Nelson’s Family band.

Winnipeg’s classical music scene has its own version of a family group with the JAGD Quartet, the chamber ensemble that includes cellist Juliana Moroz, violist Sacha Moroz, and their parents, violinist Gwen Hoebig and pianist David Moroz.

They’ll perform Sunday as part of the Women’s Musical Club’s Centre Stage concert series at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Hoebig, who is celebrating her 35th year as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s concertmaster, and her husband David, who chairs the piano department at the Desautels School of Music at the University of Manitoba and is the Winnipeg Chamber Music Society’s artistic director, have set a high musical bar for their kids.

The quartet’s younger tandem are building their own reputations, though. Sacha just graduated from the University of Ottawa’s music program and Juliana continues her studies at the McDuffie Centre for Strings at Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

They were back-to-back winners of the Winnipeg Music Festival’s Aikins Memorial Trophy, presented annually for the top instrumental performance of the festival, with Juliana winning in 2017 and Sacha in 2018.

It was the festival that brought the family together as a musical quartet in 2017, when Juliana and Sacha were in their teens. The four have kept with it, between their busy schedules, and six years after their first performances, Hoebig says they play as equals.

— Alan Small

Architecture, design and the silver screen

Architecture + Design Film Festival
Various locations; now until Sunday
Visit adff.ca for ticket information

Brutalist buildings, arthouse cinemas and healthy home design are just a few of the documentary subjects explored during this year’s Architecture + Design Film Festival.

The 12th annual edition of the local festival features 22 films from 11 countries, including the United States, Poland, Australia, France, Italy and Denmark.

There will also be premières of several Canadian films, such as Places + Spaces: Winnipeg. The 45-minute documentary, directed by local filmmaker Noam Gonick, is packaged as a series of vignettes that highlight some of the city’s most iconic buildings and neighbourhoods. The film screens tomorrow at 5 p.m. at Dave Barber Cinematheque (100 Arthur St.) and will be followed by a Q&A session with the filmmakers.

The festival’s ArchiShorts competition returns Saturday with a free noon-hour screening at Cinematheque. Entries in the short-film (two minutes or less) contest were received from across North American, Europe and Asia.

Other venues for this year’s film festival are the Carol Shields Auditorium at the Millennium Library (251 Donald St.) and Stantec’s downtown office (500-311 Portage Ave.). Daytime screenings are either free or pay-what-you-can. Evening events are $10 for the general public, $8 for students and seniors and $6 for Cinematheque or Winnipeg Film Group members.

— Eva Wasney

If you value coverage of Manitoba’s arts scene, help us do more.
Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.