Manitoba Live Music Event

About

Composer Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson holds a special place in Iceland and its music scene. He is presenting the world premiere of a major new work for orchestra and choir. Hilmarsson has worked with Björk and members of Sigur Rós, contributed deeply emotional scores to award-winning films, worked with major directors such as Jane Campion, won the European Film Composer of the Year Award and was nominated for the 2017 Harpa Lifetime Achievement Award. Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (USA) was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Music, is a four-time Grammy nominee, and was designated Musical America’s Composer of the Year in 1999. She composed her Symphony No. 3 for the New York Philharmonic’s 150th anniversary. The concert opens with a WSO commission by Karen Sunabacka (Winnipeg); her #DryColdConversations draws inspiration from Manitobans’ impressions of winter, collected by the composer through conversations on Facebook, with refugees, Métis relatives and friends.

Presented with the support of The University of Manitoba Icelandic Department, Arni Thorsteinson and Susan Glass, and Peter Johnson in celebration of long-standing relationship between Iceland and the Icelandic community of Manitoba and to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Danish-Icelandic Act of Union.

WORKS
Karen Sunabacka (Can) #DryColdConversations (2017) for orchestra WORLD PREMIERE
Commissioned by the WSO
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich Symphony No. 3 (1992) CANADIAN PREMIERE
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson 7 Friends (2017) for choir & orchestra WORLD PREMIERE
Commissioned by the WSO

ARTISTS
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra
Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor
Prairie Voices, Geung Kroeker-Lee, director
Jane Fingler, soprano

PRE-CONCERT PANEL
Dark, Darker, Darkest
6:45PM | Piano Nobile
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, composer Karen Sunabacka, composer Matthew Patton, host Alexander Mickelthwate, host

POST-CONCERT PANEL
Piano Nobile
Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, composer
Karen Sunabacka, composer
Matthew Patton, host
Alexander Mickelthwate, host

POST-CONCERT RECEPTION
Piano Nobile 
Tony Neustadter, DJ