Winnipeg New Music Festival : Schirmer News Winter 2010

The hugely popular Winnipeg New Music Festival celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2011.

John Corigliano. © J. Henry Fair

A production of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO), this year’s festival runs from January 29th through February 4th and features distinguished guest composers John Corigliano and Avner Dorman. Corigliano is invited for a celebratory return engagement and performances include his epic Circus Maxiumus and his percussion concerto Conjurer with Dame Evelyn Glennie as soloist.

Dorman’s newest orchestra work (not) The Shadow, commissioned by Magnum Opus for the WSO, receives its Canadian premiere on February 3rd. Although Dorman sources Hans Christian Andersen’s dark fairy tale “The Shadow,” he assures audiences that this new piece is (not) The Shadow. The original story tells a tale of a learned man who sends his shadow to find out a secret on a hot summer night in a southern country. The shadow runs away and becomes a rich and powerful man through blackmail and extortion (as he can enter homes at night and see people’s darkest secrets). To read more about the piece, click here.