“The 2019 Winnipeg New Music Festival has come and gone in a blaze of glory,” writes Holly Harris in Wednesday’s (2/6) Winnipeg Free Press (Canada). “This year’s event … marked WSO maestro Daniel Raiskin’s inaugural festival…. Festival co-founder Bramwell Tovey … led the players through John Adams’ thundering Harmonielehre, the cornerstone of the festival’s first program back in 2001…. Over the years, I have harped about the general lack of women composers featured during prior festivals. So what a joy it was to hear so many strong, compelling works by the likes of Vivian Fung, Nicole Lizee, Jocelyn Morlock, Kelly-Marie Murphy, Caroline Shaw, Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Luna Pearl Woolf this year, not to mention emerging composer Amy Brandon’s sleeper hit 3 Portraits…. Who can ever forget the sight and sounds of prog-metal pioneers … Animals as Leaders taking the stage for their symphonic debut? … One of the coolest—literally—concerts was … Glacial Time, held Jan. 25 on the frozen Assiniboine River. A capacity crowd of 500 … huddled together to hear John Luther Adams’ too-lengthy for -28 C weather Inuksuit, as well as Norwegian composer Terje Isungset’s Beauty of Winter, which he performed with the crystalline vocals of Maria Skranes.”
Posted February 7, 2019
