Arts & Culture

MTYP unveils dynamic 2025–26 season: from snowstorms to Greek gods to powerful truths. 

One of the most beloved oratorios in the Western classical music canon will be on full display at First Mennonite Church on Notre Dame Avenue this weekend.  

If music be the food of love... we say turn up the volume! This Saturday, May 31 at 9 a.m., Classic 107 is dishing up a Shakespeare-inspired playlist to celebrate the return of Shakespeare in the Ruins (SIR), Manitoba’s acclaimed outdoor theatre company. Their 2025 season kicks off June 5 with Macbeth, followed by a production of Waiting for Godot (yes, that one), beginning June 13. 

When you walk into the Urban Shaman Gallery in the Exchange District in the next couple of weeks, you’ll be greeted by a wide array of pieces made from an even wider range of materials. Each of these materials has significance for its healing properties in the communities of the Metis artists who contributed to the gallery’s latest exhibit, aptly titled I’ll Share My Medicines.  

A music education crisis is unfolding in Saskatchewan, as the Regina Public School Division moves forward with drastic cuts to its elementary band program — a nationally recognized initiative that has enriched the lives of thousands of students for decades. These cuts, driven by years of provincial underfunding, threaten not only the future of music in schools, but the quality and equity of education itself.

A 1690 Rugeri cello has begun a new chapter in its storied life in the hands of one of Winnipeg’s most exciting young classical musicians.  

David Liam Roberts will be performing on this incredibly rare instrument thanks to a three-year loan from Canada Council for the Arts’ Musical Instrument Bank, which awards rare instruments to talented artists across the country who participate in a competition to use them.  

One of the largest choral families in Winnipeg is announcing a new exciting chapter with the appointment of a new artistic director.  

Leanne Regehr Lee will be taking over the helm of Winnipeg Sonora Voices after years of accompanying and conducting three of the choirs that make up the choral collective. 

“I’m very thrilled about it,” said Regehr Lee in an interview on Morning Light. “It’s really exciting to be part of the leadership team for the organization.” 

What If Theatre is set to take Winnipeg theatregoers away from the Gargoyle Theatre in the West End to the fictional town of Waska, Manitoba. There, a grisly crime that took place forty years ago involving cannibalism still haunts the streets and psyches of its residents, and the once-bustling tourist community is all but deserted as a result.  

It was love that first brought soprano Elin Rombo to Brandon as a young student. 

“We used to joke that it all started with the Balkan War,” she recalls. “Back in Sweden in the 90’s, I had a boyfriend in high school, and he was a refugee from the former Yugoslavia. He couldn’t stay in Sweden for different reasons, and he had to find somewhere to go.” 

Two performances and one honourary degree will mark an incredible week for one of the most beloved storytellers in Canadian classical music. 

“It’s very humbling,” says Tom Allen of the honourary degree he will receive from Brandon University at their convocation proceedings this week.