Pop stars, late-night legends join WSO
Crash Test Dummies, Paul Shaffer on tap for orchestra's 2020-21 Pops lineup
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/02/2020 (2149 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Imagine the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra was Superman with a million dollars. Toss in some archeological thrills and a couple of dates with a late-night legend.
What you wind up with is highlights of the WSO’s Pops lineup for 2020-21, which was announced at Friday’s Once Upon a Love Song concert at the Centennial Concert Hall. It includes guest appearances by Winnipeg’s Crash Test Dummies, Barenaked Ladies’ co-founder Steven Page, Late Show with David Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer and the orchestra accompanying the film Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The Crash Test Dummies, which will perform with the WSO on Sept. 24, hit it big in 1991 and won the Juno Award for group of the year, thanks to the album The Ghosts That Haunt Me and tunes such as Superman’s Song, The Dummies went global in 1993 with the U.S. top-10 single Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm, from the album God Shuffled His Feet, which has sold more than five million copies around the world.
After several more albums in the 1990s, the Crash Test Dummies went on hiatus, with each member working on solo projects. The original members, Brad Roberts, Ellen Reid, Dan Roberts and Mitch Dorge reunited in 2017 and in 2018 launched a North American tour marking the 25th anniversary of God Shuffled His Feet.
During his time with Barenaked Ladies, Page (Oct. 16 and 17) sang and co-wrote many of the group’s hits, including If I Had $1000000, Jane, Brian Wilson and It’s All Been Done.
Shaffer became the most famous person from Thunder Bay after teaming up with David Letterman to front the World’s Most Dangerous Band on Late Night with David Letterman and the CBS Orchestra on The Late Show with David Letterman. Prior to that, he led the Saturday Night Live house band during the show’s glory years of 1975-80. On March 19-21, 2021, Shaffer and the WSO will be joined by Motown singer Valerie Simpson, who is known for the 1966 hit Ain’t No Mountain High Enough when she and her husband Nickolas Ashford were the act Ashford & Simpson.
Also part of the Pops program in 2020-21 are: Back Down the Danube, led by WSO music director Daniel Raiskin (June 28); the Canadian Brass 50th anniversary celebration (Nov. 14-15); Symphony of Illusions, with magician Michael Grandinetti (Dec. 11-13); Symphonic Fly with the Fly dance company (Jan. 9-10, 2021); The Swingles vocal group (Feb. 5-7) and My Favorite Things: The Best of Rodgers & Hammerstein, with vocalists Andriana Chuchman, Donna Fletcher, Aaron Hutton and Gregory Dahl.
The WSO will also accompany three movies in the upcoming season, including the film that created the Indiana Jones legend, Raiders of the Lost Ark (Nov. 20-21), which was scored by five-time Oscar winner John Williams. Also on tap is Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix (Feb. 19-20) and The Little Mermaid (April 17-18).
Two special events are also on the schedule, and WSO subscribers can get access to tickets before they go on sale to the general public on March 3. The first is Thorgy Thor and her Thorchestra (July 2). Thor, a violinist who became an audience favourite on the TV series RuPaul’s Drag Race, will join the WSO and Raiskin for pop hits by Lady Gaga and Madonna as well as classical standards by Tchaikovsky and Copland.
On Oct. 8, the WSO will perform and host Li Keur, Riel’s Heart of the North, a new opera about the Métis leader often referred to as the Father of Manitoba (see sidebar).
The early-bird deadline for subscriptions is April 25; they can be purchased online at wso.ca or by phone at 204-949-3999.
alan.small@freepress.mb.ca
Twitter:@AlanDSmall
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Musical tribute to Louis Riel
The WSO will mark Manitoba 150 celebrations with Li Keur, Riel’s Heart of the North, an opera that uses Métis-based music and a libretto written in five languages, Cree-Michif, French-Michif, Saulteaux, French and English.
Suzanne Steele, a Métis composer and poet based in Vancouver, wrote the libretto and Winnipeg composer Neil Weisensel wrote the music based on her words. The result is a 90-minute work about the Métis leader who was executed in 1885 that includes five vocal soloists, a narrator, a choir singing in the Michif language, fiddlers, dancers and the WSO, which will be led by associate conductor Julian Pellicano.
The idea was brought to Steele by her agent. “Of course it interested me as a Métis person and of someone with a classical music background and as a poet,” she says. “You could probably write a thousand operas on Louis Riel on any facet of his life.”
Steele wrote the piece in English and had parts translated into the other four languages, including by Saulteaux and Michif translators based in Manitoba. Weisensel says the plan is to have surtitles for the audience, just as operas sung in languages other than English do.
Steele and Weisensel applied for and won a grant through the Canada 150 New Chapter program, and set 2020, Manitoba’s 150th birthday, as a target date. A 40-minute excerpt of Li Keur was performed in Regina last year, but the full 90-minute work, which is still undergoing final revisions, hits the Centennial Concert Hall stage on Oct. 8.
Steele and Weisensel travelled across Western Canada and the northern United States to research Métis culture and Riel’s life.
“It was fascinating. The fiddle is the main instrument of the Métis people and there’s so many great fiddle tunes and fiddlers from the area, because this is Métis heartland,” says Weisensel, who is also a music instructor at Canadian Mennonite University. “All the music that I wrote is built on the fiddle tunes.”
An opera about Riel was composed by Harry Somers and performed in 1967 for Canada’s centennial, but Weisensel and Steele say the way Riel is viewed today is much different, opening the door for another operatic work.
“It’s a Métis story but it’s also a Canadian story and it’s also a Manitoba story,” Weisensel says. “Louis Riel wasn’t just fighting for the rights of Métis people and Indigenous people, he was fighting for the rights of everybody.”
— Alan Small
Alan Small
Reporter
Alan Small was a journalist at the Free Press for more than 22 years in a variety of roles, the last being a reporter in the Arts and Life section.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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