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This coming Tuesday, January 25, 2022, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra will kick off their much anticipated annual New Music Festival. There are three concerts this year, with a limited, socially distanced seating capacity of 250 people, however you can also see the concerts online and all of the concerts from the comfort of your home.

The first concert of this year’s WMNF is called Digital Landscapes. With this concert, the New Music Festival veers into the world of technology, mathematics, and social commentary with an eclectic program of Canadian works. There will by music performed by Canadian composers Elliot Britten, Nicole Lizee, Harry Stafylakis, and Michael Oesterle.

Watch the full interview with Ben Reimer and Chris Wolf:

One of the main performers on the concert will be Winnipeg drum set and percussion phenom Ben Reimer. Reimer was contacted by the composer-in-residence with the WSO Harry Stafylakis, about the possibility of playing his piece “Therein Lies the Enemy.” From there the concert morphed into a concert of music for drum kit featuring Canadian composers who have written works for kit.

Of note is the fact that two of the four composers are from Manitoba. Nicole Lizee earned her Bachelor of Music degree from Brandon University, and Winnipegger, Elliot Britten earned his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Manitoba.

Elliot Britten is a composer who is often known for his use of recorded sounds in his music. For his piece “Hyperscale Landscape,” Britton makes use of sounds from nature. “There’s the sound of crickets, and the sounds of fields,” states Reimer. The piece was also part of a larger composition that was performed by an Orchestra, and for this performance Reimer will be playing along to these nature sounds, the recorded sounds of the orchestra. He will also be joined by WSO Assistant Conductor Naomi Woo, who will be playing piano.

The next piece Reimer will be performing will be Nicole Lizee’s piece “Katana of Choice.” The title of the piece is inspired from martial arts movies. As Reimer says “She (Lizee) describes the piece  as a visual novel…which I love because as you go through nineteen minutes of this music, there are these sort of scenes…these chapters that you can kind of hear an end of one chapter, and moving on to another. The textures change… different elements come in to create different characters.”

Ben has recorded Lizee’s pieces, and has toured with it through the United States and Canada. This will be Winnipeg’s introduction to what sounds like a fabulous piece by a Manitoba composer.

The last piece Reimer will be performing is WSO Composer-in-Residence Harry Stafylakis’s piece “Therin Lies the Enemy.” Harry Stafylakis is a flag-waving lover of heavy metal music, and incorporates elements of that in his music. “100 per cent Metal influences,” states Reimer. There are also pitched percussion instruments that are used, such as glockenspiel. Stafylakis, who is so in tune with the sound world of Metal, knows how to show the best possibilities and grooves that the drum set is capable of.

One of the things that Reimer hopes audience members will get from the concert is an appreciation for how drum kit can be incorporated into classical music. “We don’t think of it (the drum kit) in the classical world… for the last fifteen years I’ve been doing concertos and chamber music, and solo music all within this context of contemporary modern art classical music. This instrument is being written for…through-composed, fully notated music, and there is a whole repertoire for it there that is really exciting!

“Digital Landscapes” kicks off the WMNF this Tuesday, January 25th, 2022 at 7:30pm. Audience attendance is limited to 250 people; socially distanced and vaccinated. You can also see all three of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s WMNF concert online by clicking here.