Arts & Culture

Longtime WSO Concertmaster Gwen Hoebig has announced that the 2024/25 WSO season will be her last. 

In a press release, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra announced that the esteemed concertmaster will conclude her remarkable tenure at the end of the season. 

“In May 2025, I will step down from the Concertmaster position of the WSO, a position I have held for 37 years! It has been an honour to have been in this position since September 1987,” says Hoebig in the press release. 

Intermezzo at 1 p.m.: Music from Broadway Musicals in honor of Rainbow Stages production of Mary Poppins 

This summer has been a busy and very vibrant one for Canada’s largest and longest running outdoor theatre, Rainbow Stage. From June 27th to July14th they presented Mabuhay! A brand-new musical written by Joseph Sevillo and Joshua Caldo.  

On June14th, the Azica record label released a fabulous new recording that features the renowned flute player Eugenia Moliner.  

This Saturday, August 24th at Knox United Church at 2:00pm there will be a truly musically magical event happening. 

An idyllic, riverside setting will play host to “A Late Summer Night’s Dream.”  

Two beloved Winnipeg musicians, soprano Christina Thanisch-Smith and pianist Lisa Rumpel, perform together in an intimate house concert presented by the Women’s Musical Club of Winnipeg in partnership with Flipside Opera and Art Song Collective.  

“It was a really nice marriage for us to work together,” says Flipside’s General Manager Lisa Rumpel about the partnership between the organizations.  

The stage is (nearly) set.  

Next month, a brand new, state-of-the-art performance facility opens at the University of Manitoba – the grand finale in the ambitious multi-year Taché Arts Project.  

“The curtains are being installed as we speak,” says Mel Braun, Voice Area Head at the Desautels Faculty of Music. 

Since this past Wednesday, August 14th, the Campus at Canadian Mennonite University has been resonating with the sounds of strings.  

The Rosamunde Summer Music Festival and Academy is now on.  Students from as young as five all the way up to 65 have been learning intensively from some of the finest string players in the country.  

Tune in at 1pm all this week as we explore the music of the Romanian composer George Enescu, as we celebrate his 143rd birthday. 

Today Enescu is primarily remembered for his two Romanian Rhapsodies for orchestra, but he wrote a great deal of terrific aside from those two youthful works. 

Before returning to regular lessons and fall schedules, participants in the Rosamunde Summer Music Academy are looking to better their string playing through educational workshops, masterclasses, coachings and performance opportunities.  

“It creates a great community that forms friendships and relationships,” says co-founder and artistic director Elation Pauls.  

Audiences won’t need a spoonful of sugar to make Rainbow Stage’s next production any more appealing.  

Expect a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious show when Mary Poppins makes her return to the iconic domed theatre in Kildonan Park.  

“(Mary Poppins) returns when you need her most,” says Rainbow Stage Artistic Director Carson Nattrass.    

Last staged over a decade ago, the production starring everyone’s favourite nanny serves as the ideal foil to the first-ever world-premiere that kicked off the 70th anniversary Rainbow Stage season, according to Nattrass.