In less than a week, one of the city’s most celebrated music events, the Winnipeg New Music Festival (WNMF), returns in a modified, multi-day hybrid format. 

Running January 25th, 26th and 28th, the three day festival welcomes a reduced in-person audience and limitless online eyes to take in the best of new music. 

“It was quite a challenge to keep pivoting over and over again throughout December and January,” says WNMF Co-Curator and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Composer-in-Residence Harry Stafylakis. “But we managed to make something work that we’re really excited about.” 

WNMF 1: Digital Landscapes 

In the festival opening concert, WNMF explores the world of technology, mathematics and social commentary with works by Eliot Britton, Nicole Lizée, Michael Oesterle and Stafylakis. 

“One of the things that these composers have in common is an engagement with science and technology,” explains Stafylakis, who points special attention to native Winnipegger Britton and Canadian new music iconoclast Lizée for their “conceptional” and “artistic” use of musical sound. 

The concert features RBC Assistant Conductor of the WSO Naomi Woo at the piano, along with concertmaster Gwen Hoebig and Assistant concertmaster Karl Stobbe. Recently returned percussionist Ben Reimer performs in two solo works including the JUNO-nominated Katana of Choice for solo drum set by Lizée, and a duo performance with Woo in the music of Britton. 

WNMF 2: Steven Beck 

New York-based pianist Steven Beck makes his WNMF debut on Wednesday, January 26 in a concert which was originally to feature Vicky Chow at the keyboard. 

“For reasons beyond anyone’s control, she was not able to make it,” explains Stafylakis, who is equally thrilled to welcome Beck to Winnipeg. 

“He was able to jump in at the last second with a killer program that I’m really excited to be able to present.” 

In a program ranging from “quite avant-garde" to “neo-Romantic, lush and beautiful” Beck performs music of Katherine Balch, Olga Neuwirth, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Charles Wuorinen, and George Walker. 

WNMF 3: The Last Word 

With WNMF co-curator and WSO Music Director Daniel Raiskin on the podium, members of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra return to the Centennial Concert Hall for the final night of performance. 

Kelly-Marie Murphy’s In the Time of Our Disbelieving, a musical response to the pandemic and the disruption it has caused in all of our lives, opens the evening. 

“She’s one of the great Canadian orchestral composers,” says Stafylakis. “I think we can expect to experience from this piece something that is characteristically Kelly-Marie Murphy, which is quite powerful, driving, almost machine-like music in places. But, at the same time, she is very much responding powerfully, emotionally to the damage and turmoil.” 

Sofia Gubaidulina, “one of the legends,” closes out the WNMF’s 31st iteration. WSO Principal Cellist Yuri Hooker and guest bayan soloist Roman Yusipey perform her Seven Words.

A limited 250 person audience is expected to be in attendance; though with changing public health restrictions, the online option presents patrons with the opportunity to watch from the comfort of home. 

A WNMF pass is $79 and individual tickets start at $25, with livestream passes and one time access codes for $29 and $10, respectively. 

For more details, visit: www.wnmf.ca