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For up-and-coming musicians in the city, the Winnipeg Music Festival has long been a place to test the waters with their skills. That remains true in 2025 as the festival has gotten underway with performances and adjudications across the city.
“They’ve been really fun so far,” says executive director Dawn Bruch-Wiens on the first couple of days.
The festival features the next generation of Winnipeg musicians in a wide variety of disciplines and instruments, from pianists to string players, solo singers to choirs. Over the course of the festival’s three-week run, they will receive adjudication from clinicians from across the country, as well as compete for trophies that have been a part of the festival’s history since its inception in 1919.
2025 marks Bruch-Wiens' first festival as executive director, but her association with the longstanding organization goes back much longer. “I performed in the festival since I was 15,” she shares. “I got to go to provincials and nationals when I was in my 20’s, and it’s been a huge part of my life.”
Since her performing days, Bruch-Wiens has also been an adjudicator for the festival, and has sent her voice students to be adjudicated in turn.
“It’s kind of this really intense time,” she admits about the festival experience, “but then, at the end of it, you become this improved performer and there’s so much growth in that small period of time.”
“I really try to put value on the experience on the growth of, you know, what you can do between classes, and if you get into the trophy class, that’s a bonus.”
While it’s too soon for Bruch-Wiens to consider how the festival might change in her tenure – “Right now, I’m trying to survive,” she laughs – one thing she’s looking to add is more opportunities for performers of popular music to participate. “We have this new class called the popular contemporary class, which is a provincial eligible class,” she shares, “that is, you know, pop music, can be jazz, just kind of that popular contemporary style. I’d love to see some sort of class stemming from that popular contemporary class to self-composed singer-songwriter stuff just because I think it’s so cool and we have such a wealth of singer-songwriters and composers in this city.
Another key part of the Winnipeg Music Festival are the volunteers who help everything run smoothly. “We would welcome anybody to volunteer, get in our community,” says Bruch-Wiens, adding that there is a volunteer intake form at the festival’s website.
Programs for the 2025 Winnipeg Music Festival can be picked up at the festival offices on St. Anne’s Road, at Croft Music on Henderson Highway, the Long & McQuade on Pembina Highway, and at St. John’s Music on Portage Avenue. More information can be found at the festival’s website.
