Arts & Culture

The Winnipeg Pops Orchestra's latest concert showcases the unique role that it plays in the city’s cultural landscape: an opportunity for volunteer musicians to play at a high level and offering an accessible window into classical music for audiences.  

“The Winnipeg Pops Orchestra is a great group of people,” said conductor Tony Cyre in an interview on Morning Light. “They just want to play, they just want to have fun, and they want to make the best music possible.” 

One of Winnipeg’s busiest violinists is asking, ‘What nourishes you?’ with the music on her debut album.  

Elation Pauls set out to answer that question back in 2020 when she was forced to confront a life without consistent music performance in the face of the public health lockdowns.  

“I was really searching, really asking myself, ‘What am I doing as a violinist? Am I serving at all in this capacity?’ she said in an interview on Morning Light.  

This week on Classic 107, we’re turning the spotlight on one of Spain’s most iconic composers: Isaac Albéniz. Born May 29, 1860, Albéniz was a prodigious pianist and composer whose music captures the vivid colors, rhythms, and soul of Spain. To mark his birthday, we’re dedicating the 1 PM hour all week to his piano music, with a complete broadcast of his monumental suite "Iberia" and a performance of his Piano Concerto.

After thirty years of teaching in Winnipeg, and forty years of teaching in total, one local music teacher is saying farewell to the studio.  

Earlier this month, Laurel Howard, a string instructor and Suzuki music teacher in the Wolseley area, hosted her final studio recital at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church, closing out a career that has touched countless musicians and lives.  

2025 has already been a huge year for Zilla Jones. The Winnipeg author released her debut novel The World So Wide last month, which tells the story of a mixed-race opera star chasing down validation and love. The release comes as Jones was named one of the five recipients of the 2025 Writers’ Trust Rising Stars, a program launched back in 2019 that supports the next wave of Canadian literary talent with mentorship and financial support.  

The choral music of Filipino composers will take centre stage this weekend at the Lutheran Church of the Cross in Winnipeg’s West End. The Musica Singers and Polycoro, alongside choirs from Garden City Collegiate and Maples Collegiate, present a concert called Paraiso with pieces by Nilo Alcala, Saunder Choi, and Ruben Federizon, among others. 

The stories of communities across the Asian diaspora will be represented in the fifth annual FascinAsian Film Festival, which officially gets underway on May 22. Five feature-length productions, dozens of shorts and a wide variety of programming will be presented in conjunction with Asian Heritage Month.  

It’s one thing to be presenting your first-ever photography exhibit to the public, but it is something else entirely for that exhibit to a personal expression of gender and body.  

The latest concert from DreamPlay features what can only be described as musical treasures.  

For one thing, there’s the instrument that will be featured most prominently: the button accordion, which has played a key role in musical cultures from France to New Orleans to Ukraine. The music of all of these places and more will be on full display in Spirit Reel: The Musical Worlds of Jim Hiscott, which is the other treasured element of DreamPlay’s concert. 

The Village Conservatory is providing an opportunity for the next wave of musical theatre artists in Winnipeg to showcase their talents.