WNMF x AR
Digital Sound Sculptures
Throughout the festival | Around the Centennial Concert Hall
Immerse yourself in a WNMF augmented reality experience all week. Created by composer and guitarist Amy Brandon and inspired by each concert, different indoor and outdoor murals will come to life as you guide your phone inside the lobby and outside the Concert Hall in Steinkopf Gardens at each concert.
Visit wnmfxar.com to learn more and to download the app for free.
Portal X
Throughout the festival | Lobby of Centennial Concert Hall
There are few sounds so resonant, so haunting as the high voices chanting over the steady and persistent pow wow drum. The music pulses with the steady heartbeat, the quest, lamentation or celebration, and connects people to the ancestors, to each other, to the land, and to the Great Spirit. It has been this way for a millennia. In the more recent European tradition, the Latin Mass has numinous power, a cathedral of ethereal sound, which penetrates inward and reaches out. The text is ancient and the plaintive melodies transcendent. Music commissioned for Portal X, from two local composers, Jesse Krause and Darren Day, is inspired by this evocative tradition. This root language, Latin, is a strangely familiar sound that most of us feel rather than understand.
The themes of temporal and infinite are represented through discrete streams of rhythm and melody. The sinuous melodies and intertwined harmonies, which soar above the synthesized soundscape of throb and drone, the urgent rhythm of the heart, of the clock, the diurnal. The visceral geology of molten bass, now fluid, now solid, affords a deep, dark foundation; a contrast and a context for the chorale voices; like earth and sky, dark and light, hell and heaven, etc., etc. These sonic lines are discrete yet symbiotic, they intersect where the two chambers meet and reverberate throughout the lobby of the Concert Hall.
Live vocal performance will occur on some nights to the synchronized version. On other nights, the two sonic streams will be de-synchronized in various combinations so each night’s experience will be unique.
Form and Flow
January 26, 2020 | 2-4 pm | The Common at The Forks Market
One of the best things about the Winnipeg New Music Festival is not knowing what you’re going to hear or see next. Join the University of Manitoba Percussion Ensemble and the eXperimental Improv Ensemble (XIE) at The Forks for a series of short pop up concerts between 2-4pm. We will be premiering new works by Desautels Faculty of Music composition students as well as creating site specific improvisations in the venue. Come and hear innovative and cutting-edge creations written and performed by up and coming musicians in one of the best public venues Winnipeg has to offer.
Skywalk Concert Series: Indigenous New Music performed by the Brandon University New Music Ensemble.
January 30, 2020 | 12:10 – 12:50 pm | Millennium Library Carol Shields Auditorium
The Brandon University New Music Ensemble (BUNME) directed by Megumi Masaki performs Indigenous compositions by Cris Derksenthat “braids the traditional with the contemporary” and Ian Cussonthat “explores the Canadian Aboriginal experience, including the history of the Métis people, the hybridity of mixed-racial identity, and the intersection of Western and Indigenous cultures.” BUNME musicians: HwanGyu Cho, Kayla Hay, Alanna Hunter, David Yu Juncheng, Kendra Maxon, Jake Moral, Angela Myshkowsky, Wilhelm Neufeld, Azaria Neuschwander, Mishelle Renz, Jaimie Rose, Josias Sanchez, Megumi Masaki.
Sonic Trails
January 31, 2020 | 10 am – 9 pm | Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Garden of Contemplation
Örjan Sandred, composer
In “Sonic Trails : the Prairies”, composer Örjan Sandred uses the sound of environments from locations around Winnipeg as the base for immersive soundscapes. Sophisticated computer algorithms using artificial intelligence take decisions for how the sound-paintings evolve during the performance. The computer makes every moment unique – sometimes recognizable elements stick out and occasionally the soundscape opens up and puts us in a new context. The installation transfers us from our exterior impression of the surrounding to an internal experience of abstract beauty. The end result is the fascination for objects we do not control.
Ubiquitous Vibrations
River East Collegiate Percussion Ensemble – Jeff Kula, director
January 31, 2020 | 12:00pm – 12:45pm | Kildonan Place Shopping Centre
Vibrations are one of the most prolific dynamic phenomena in the universe that result in many complex and fascinating capabilities, such as music and chaos. Simply stated, music is orderly vibrations, while chaos is seemingly unpredictable. The River East Collegiate Percussion Ensemble will celebrate the music of composers Steve Reich, JacoPastorius, Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass and Owen Clark on a journey of Ubiquitous Virations.