1 the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra Unveils the 25Th Anniversary

Alexander Mickelthwate, Artistic Director Matthew Patton, Curator

MEDIA RELEASE - Wednesday, November 18, 2016 - Winnipeg, Manitoba

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra unveils the 25th Anniversary WINNIPEG NEW MUSIC FESTIVAL January 23-29, 2016.

25th Anniversary Edition 25 years of breaking boundaries, bringing the international to Winnipeg, and putting contemporary music on our city’s best stage.

By the Numbers 7 nights of concerts, panels, post-concert receptions 8 World premieres of new orchestral music 7 Canadian premieres 20 composers Over 80 musicians 4 vocal groups 1 week of cultural adventure and discovery

All past WNMF Composers-In-Residence return to Winnipeg to help celebrate this momentous anniversary.

Feature Performances Pan Am Pool Transforms into a Concert Hall for Gavin Bryars’ The Sinking Of The Titanic

Doom-drone artist Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))) rocks Union Sound Hall and composes new work for symphony

New York’s So Percussion ride the line between sound and noise

Plus, David Lang, Joan Tower, Glenn Buhr, Stephen O’Malley, Barbara Monk Feldman, Gary Kulesha, Randolph Peters, Derek Charke, Vincent Ho, T. Patrick Carrabre, Matthew Patton, Mikolaj Górecki and So. Much. More.

Art

Genre-defying conceptual artist Michael Snow presents video “Snow in Vienna” in collaboration with Border Crossings

Plug In ICA sets up pop-up gallery at the Centennial Concert Hall and presents special performance in the Plug In ICA galleries

Plus, special projects by Simon Hughes, Neil Farber & Michael Dumontier

1 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival

This year is a big milestone for the Winnipeg New Music Festival. Twenty- five years of crazy, audacious programs. Twenty-five years of building a new canon of Canadian works. Twenty-five years of being the leading voice for new music in North America!

This year we look both back and forward with three world premieres from our past composers-in-residence. We invite groundbreaking American voices to Winnipeg. And we look forward into completely new lines of exploration with a commission from Stephen O’Malley.

You will see a snapshot of our society through extremes from the core of the symphonic tradition to unheard new sound worlds where time stands still. Through it all we will have conversation, art, food, music, and experiences that will challenge, stimulate and provoke.

Join us!

Alexander Mickelthwate, Artistic Director, Winnipeg New Music Festival Music Director, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

“There is an irreducible element of music that connects metal, industrial music, power electronics and classical minimalism, and no word exists for it. It involves deep pulsations; excited provocation through sound and concept more than traditional technique; low end frequencies rarely encountered in life; long sustained tones enlarged through overdrive; or distortion or just force of hands on instruments. This (music) event has a presence, a clean, judicious power.”

— Ben Ratliff, New York Times

2 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival

Winnipeg New Music Festival 2016 Line Up

WNMF 1 NEW MUSIC TOMORROW David Lang & Joan Tower Saturday, January 23 Centennial Concert Hall

"With his winning of the Pulitzer Prize, Lang, once a post-minimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master." — The New Yorker

“One of the most successful woman composers of all time” — The New Yorker on Joan Tower

WNMF 2016 opens with major works by American composers David Lang and Joan Tower, plus a special commission from festival co-founder Glenn Buhr. Behind every one of Lang’s pieces is a fascinating concept being worked out as he gives musical form to the ideas of both Man and Nature with the assistance of ensemble/soloists So Percussion. Tower's Grammy-nominated Concerto for Orchestra is a magnificent story of how an idea grows from the previous ideas in the strongest and most natural way — a lesson the composer learned from the music of Beethoven.

WORKS Glenn Buhr (CAN) Solstice ii, 2015 WORLD PREMIERE (1) David Lang (US) Mountain CANADIAN PREMIERE David Lang Man Made CANADIAN PREMIERE (2) - Intermission - Joan Tower (US) Concerto for Orchestra CANADIAN PREMIERE

ARTISTS Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1) Jan Kocman, flute (2) So Percussion: Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting

Concert sponsor:

3 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival WNMF 2 SO PERCUSSION Steve Reich, David Lang, Bryce Dessner Sunday, January 24 Centennial Concert Hall

“An exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam...” – The New Yorker on So Percussion

Acclaimed percussion quartet So Percussion perform three major works for unconventional instruments including Steve Reich’s 20th century masterwork Drumming Part 1, David Lang’s The So-Called Laws of Nature, for which So Percussion built their own instruments, and Bryce Dessner of The National’s Music for Wood and Strings. Dessner’s work is performed on “chord sticks,” a cross between a hammer dulcimer and an electric guitar, created by instrument builder Aron Sanchez in collaboration with the composer.

WORKS Steve Reich (US) Drumming Part I Bryce Dessner (US) Music for Wood and Strings CANADIAN PREMIERE - Intermission - David Lang (US) the so-called laws of nature

ARTISTS So Percussion Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, Jason Treuting

Concert sponsor: Daniel Friedman & Rob Dalgliesh

WNMF 3 INVITATION TO SILENCE The Rothko Chapel Monday, January 25 Westminster United Church

“There is no more stunning passage in postwar composition than (the ending) of Rothko Chapel... the final effect is so magical I hope never to understand it.” – Tim Johnson, musicologist

Morton Feldman’s masterwork was inspired by the feeling of suspension and floating one senses in the tranquil Houston sanctuary filled with large Mark Rothko canvasses. A world premiere choral work by Feldman’s widow, composer Barbara Monk Feldman will also be performed. David Lang’s The National Anthems explores what might be common in national anthems from around the world. Canadian Oleksa Lozowchuk’s startlingly assured Waters of Rest provides a rich and ornate counterpoint. WSO soloists and two outstanding choral ensembles perform.

4 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival WORKS Barbara Monk Feldman (CAN) Poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins WORLD PREMIERE (1) Morton Feldman (US) Rothko Chapel (2,3) - Intermission - Oleksa Lozowchuk (CAN) Waters of Rest (2) David Lang (US) The National Anthems CANADIAN PREMIERE (1,4)

ARTISTS (1) Camerata Nova, Mel Braun, conductor (2) Polycoro Chamber Choir, John Wiens, conductor (3) Daniel Scholz, viola; Frederick Liessens, percussion; Donna Laube, celesta (4) WSO Clearwater String Quartet

Presenting Patron: Sandi & Ron Mielitz

WNMF 4 BACK TO THE FUTURE World Premieres from Canada Tuesday, January 26 Centennial Concert Hall

"A masterpiece.” — Georgia Straight on Derek Charke’s Tundra Songs

“One of the finest pieces of Canadian symphonic writing ever produced.” — John Terauds, Musical Toronto on Gary Kulesha’s Third Symphony

An evening of world premieres all commissioned especially for WNMF 2016 and conducted by Gary Kulesha. Derek Charke’s choral symphony Earth Airs (Symphony No. 2) draws on a text of Greek philosopher Anaximenes, who muses on the infinite nature of air, the soul of the world, the crystalline vault of the heavens and the moon being fire. Randolph Peters, former composer-in-residence of the WNMF will premiere Thermokarst for solo clarinet, cello and orchestra, while composer/conductor Gary Kulesha will present the world premiere of his new work Echoes of Light.

WORKS Gary Kulesha (CAN) Echoes Of Light WORLD PREMIERE Winner of the Canadian Music Centre Composition Competition Randolph Peters (CAN) Thermokarst WORLD PREMIERE (1) - Intermission - Derek Charke (CAN) Earth Airs (Symphony No. 2) WORLD PREMIERE (2)

ARTISTS Gary Kulesha, conductor Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1) Micah Heilbrunn, clarinet, Yuri Hooker, cello (2) Horizon, choir; Vic Pankratz, director

5 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival WNMF 5 THE TRANSCENDENT DRONE Niblock & Snow Wednesday, January 27 Centennial Concert Hall

"[Phill Niblock is] one of the living legends of the early minimalist generation and universally recognized as one of the authentic masters of drone music.” — Chain DLK

Phill Niblock incorporates drone and its microtonal variation. “(Niblock’s) pieces never fail to induce new ways of hearing sound.” (The Quietus). Michael Snow is, without a doubt, one of the foremost North American artists of the latter half of the 20th century.

Russian-American composer Lera Auerbach’s Icarus incorporates the rarely heard theremin. Former WSO composer-in-residence T. Patrick Carrabré will premiere Winter Wind for French horn and orchestra. Vincent Ho, the most recent WSO composer-in- residence, will have the Postlude from his Arctic Symphony performed.

WORKS Phill Niblock (US) #9 (Number 9) NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE Vincent Ho (CAN) O Glorious Arcticus - Postlude (from Arctic Symphony, 5th movement) T. Patrick Carrabre (CAN) Winter Wind WORLD PREMIERE (1) Lera Auerbach (US) Icarus CANADIAN PREMIERE - Intermission & Launch of Border Crossings Issue #136 - FILM Michael Snow: Snow in Vienna INTERVIEW Michael Snow and Robert Enright

ARTISTS Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (1) Patricia Evans, horn

presents Michael Snow

Sponsored by

POP NUIT STEPHEN O’MALLEY Thursday, January 28 Union Sound Hall

“A slow-motion pyroclastic flow of primal frequencies... Sunn O))) have ended up highly rated in the meditative uplands of the avant-garde. This show is like a giant, maleficent “om” offered up to the gods of amplification - mesmeric and involving.” — The Guardian

“Monoliths and Dimensions becomes one of the boldest and most completely realized albums of the year.”

7 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival — The Guardian on the album by Sunn O)))

PROGRAM 10:15pm Burden: Doreen Girard, Caitlin Hutchison, Shelagh Pizey-Allen 11pm Stephen O’Malley, guitar

WNMF 7 THE SLOWING OF EXPERIENCE Stephen O’Malley & Henryk Górecki Friday, January 29 Centennial Concert Hall

“Gruidés (Stephen O’Malley’s first orchestral work, 2014) is a wonderfully droning, heaving, and dissonant epic of modern composition... It is an impressively satisfying, inventive, and disquieting tour de force.” — Brainwashed

Stephen O’Malley’s drone music is associated with several of the genre’s key groups. He is a noted figure in European modernism and has collaborated with Pierre Boulez’ IRCAM Institute in Paris. We will hear O’Malley’s first work for chamber orchestra in this world premiere. Henryk Górecki is best known for his mega-hit Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). Górecki’s Symphony No. 4 was left unfinished at his death in 2010 and will receive its Canadian premiere on our Festival finale. The composer’s son Mikolaj Górecki will be in attendance.

WORKS Stephen O’Malley (US) Un vide dans le ciel WORLD PREMIERE* - Intermission - Henryk Górecki (PO) Symphony No. 4 CANADIAN PREMIERE

ARTISTS Alexander Mickelthwate, conductor Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

*Commission sponsored by Michael Nesbitt

Concert sponsor: Dr. Alex Grunfeld & Silvester Komlodi

TICKET INFORMATION

TICKETS Regular $25 Student $12

POP NUIT Advance $15 At the Door $20

8 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival

FESTIVAL PASSES Early Bird Regular $69 Student $39 After January 9th Regular $89 Student $49

Tickets available at the WSO Box Office and all Ticketmaster outlets.

WSO Box Office 204 949 3999 wso.ca | wnmf.ca

Ticketmaster 1 855 985 ARTS Ticketmaster.ca

Selected Artist Biographies

DAVID LANG Passionate, prolific, and complicated, composer David Lang embodies the restless spirit of invention. Lang is at the same time deeply versed in the classical tradition and committed to music that resists categorization, constantly creating new forms.

In the words of The New Yorker, "With his winning of the Pulitzer Prize for the little match girl passion (one of the most original and moving scores of recent years), Lang, once a post-minimalist enfant terrible, has solidified his standing as an American master." Musical America's 2013 Composer of the Year and recipient of Carnegie Hall's Debs Composer's Chair for 2013-2014, Lang is one of America's most performed composers.

Many of his works resemble each other only in the fierce intelligence and clarity of vision that inform their structures. His catalogue is extensive, and his opera, orchestra, chamber and solo works are by turns ominous, ethereal, urgent, hypnotic, unsettling and very emotionally direct. Much of his work seeks to expand the definition of virtuosity in music — even the deceptively simple pieces can be fiendishly difficult to play and require incredible concentration by musicians and audiences alike.

Lang is co-founder and co-artistic director of New York's legendary music collective Bang on a Can. His work has been recorded on the Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, Teldec, BMG, Point, Chandos, Argo/Decca, and Cantaloupe labels, among others.

His music is published by Red Poppy Music (ASCAP) and is distributed worldwide by G. Schirmer, Inc.

JOAN TOWER Joan Tower is widely regarded as one of the most important composers living today. Over a career spanning more than fifty years, she has made lasting contributions to musical life

9 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival as composer, educator, and performer. She has written for the Emerson, Tokyo, and Muir quartets; soloists Evelyn Glennie, Carol Wincenc, David Shifrin, and John Browning; and the orchestras of Chicago, New York, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington DC, among others. Leonard Slatkin and the Nashville Symphony recorded Made in America in 2008, an album that collected three Grammy awards including Best Classical Contemporary Composition. In 1990 she became the first woman to win the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Silver Ladders, written for the St. Louis Symphony where she was Composer- in-Residence (1985-1988). Other residencies include the Orchestra of St. Luke's (1997- 2007) and the Pittsburgh Symphony (2010-2011). She was cofounder and pianist for the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players from 1970-1985.

SO PERCUSSION With its innovative multi-genre original productions, sensational interpretations of modern classics, and “exhilarating blend of precision and anarchy, rigor and bedlam,” (The New Yorker), So Percussion has redefined the scope of the modern percussion ensemble.

Recent and upcoming highlights include David Lang’s percussion concerto “man made” with Gustavo Dudamel for the opening of the LA Phil season; Bryce Dessner’s “Music for Wood and Strings” at the Barbican in London and at Bonnaroo Music and Art Festival; a featured appearance on WNYC’s Radiolab with Jud Abumrad; collaborations with Shara Worden and Glenn Kotche at Carnegie Hall; and more.

So Percussion is the Edward T. Cone Ensemble-in-Residence at Princeton University, and its members are Co-Directors of a new percussion department at the Bard College- Conservatory of Music.

So is: Eric Cha-Beach, Josh Quillen, Adam Sliwinski, and Jason Treuting

STEPHEN O’MALLEY

"Insofar they may expand on the O))) principles albeit perhaps a more sculptural and angular direction; the extended solid and geometric aspects of the guitar and amplifiers, sound pressure, volume and temporal structure as ambiguous and solitary form."

Stephen O’Malley (b. 1974) was born in New Hampshire, USA and raised in Seattle. He eventually spent a decade in New York and presently is based in Paris. As a composer and musician he has been involved in hundreds of concerts and performances around the world over since 1993.

O’Malley is a founding member of several groups including Thorr's Hammer (1993), Burning Witch (1995), Sunn O))) (1998), Khanate (2000), KTL (2005), Nazoranai (2011), ÄÄNIPÄÄ (2011) and others. He is a frequent collaborator of many outsider musicians, artists and composers in various formations, in concert and studio settings. He was also part of the formative teams which created the Southern Lord (1998) and Ajna Offensive (1995) record labels, and has worked as the art director for the Misanthropy records label (1997-2000) and others, as well as for various NY based advertising agencies and publications (1998-

10 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival 2006). In 2011 he created the Ideologic Organ record label in collaboration with Peter Rehberg / Editions Mego.

Wildly prolific, O’Malley’s oeuvre is defined by its remarkable breadth and complexity and includes collaborations with a wide range of experimental musicians, including Scott Walker, Merzbow, Jim O’Rourke, Keiji Haino, Mats Gustaffson, Peter Rehberg, and Oren Ambarchi; French choreographer and theater director Gisèle Vienne; author Dennis Cooper; contemporary composers Iancu Dumitrescu, Roger Tessier, Eyvind Kang and Alvin Lucier; Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov; American sculptor Banks Violette; Italian performance artist Nico Vascellari; Luxembourg’s filmmaker artists Gast Bouschet & Nadine Hilbert; Swiss artist Emily Ding; American filmmaker Jim Jarmusch; Fashion designer Rick Owens; Belgian filmmaker Alexis Destoop; and many others. O’Malley’s multifaceted, multidisciplinary interests intersect on many levels.

Within Gisèle Vienne plays, he has created the music for Kindertotenlieder (2006), This is How You Will Disappear (2010), LAST SPRING: A Prequel (2011), The Pyre (2013) and The Ventriloquy Convention (2015) in collaboration with Peter Rehberg (with whom he founded the band KTL) and also for Eternelle Idole (2009).

O’Malley has also worked together with film makers and visual artists in gallery and museum installation work, notably with the American sculptor, Banks Violette on several pieces between 2005-2008.

11 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival Generously sponsored by:

We gratefully acknowledge our funders and supporters:

About WSO: The WSO is integral to Winnipeg's rich cultural life, delighting more than 225,000 audience members each year with innovative programming and musical excellence. The WSO presents educational programs for more than 40,000 students annually and tours to communities across Manitoba.

-30-

MEDIA: For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact: Sarah Panas, Marketing & Communications Coordinator p. (204) 949-3970 e: [email protected]

12 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra | Winnipeg New Music Festival