Earlier this week, orchestra people from across Canada met in Winnipeg, MB at Orchestras Canada’s annual national meetings, co-hosted by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

It was an action packed few days, as over 50 delegates at the meeting took part in expert presentations on working better with data, collaborations with First Nations and Aboriginal communities, ground-breaking recent research on audience and patron growth, negotiating skills, and better governance. But it wasn’t all work: we were privileged to attend the opening of the Winnipeg Symphony’s 2nd annual Indigenous Festival, to hear short performances by both Andrew Balfour’s remarkable Camerata Nova choir and the outreach ensemble of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, and to watch an exceptionally engaging documentary on the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s 2008 trip to Nunavik. Peer to peer learning was also highlighted, and we’re grateful to leaders from Halifax, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, Edmonton, Vancouver and Nanaimo for sharing innovative practices and projects with their colleagues.

If you weren’t there, do not fret! You can still share in the experience: over the coming weeks, Orchestras Canada will be posting resources and podcasts from national meetings sessions on our website, and we look forward to letting you know when key resources are ready to share.

None of this could have happened without the support, energy and intelligence of many, many people. We’d like to thank

• The organizing committee: Leanne Atkinson of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, Thérèse Boutin of the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières; Trudy Schroeder of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Vicki Young of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra.
• Our host organizations: the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra – both of whom mobilized all of their resources to ensure that our program was full , and our guests treated graciously;
• Expert presenters: Robert Friend, VP Choice Ticketing Systems; facilitator Sam Baardman and panelists Sam Baardman, Vince Fontaine, JF Phaneuf, Lisa Abrams and Tanya Derksen (all from the WSO); mezzo soprano Marion Newman; Vicki Young and Boyd Mackenzie from the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra; Cameron Baggins from the Frontier School Division; Alan Greyeyes from the Aboriginal Music Project at Manitoba Music; Andrew Balfour and Camerata Nova; Jack McAuliffe of Engaged Audiences LLP and Kate Prescott of Prescott Associates; Francis Handy of the Stitt Feld Handy Group; and David Brown of Brown Governance.
• Meeting funders and sponsors: the Canada Council for the Arts, whose support enabled many people from smaller budget orchestras to attend; the Department of Canadian Heritage; the Manitoba Arts Council; the Winnipeg Foundation; the Thomas Sill Foundation; Arts and Cultural Industries Manitoba; and coffee break sponsors Cowan Insurance, Dean Artists, Domoney Artists and Long and McQuade.
• A wonderful group of volunteers, recruited for us by ACI Manitoba, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra;
• OC staff members Jennifer Caines and Diann Missal and OC statistician C. Stephen Smith.

A heart-felt thank to all of these people and organizations – and to the artists and cultural organizations of the city of Winnipeg – who welcomed us so very hospitably.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, in collaboration with the West End Cultural Centre, will present three concerts showcasing the skills of about seventy young fiddlers from across the province, May 26 and 27. The MCO has been working with the Frontier School Division Fiddle program over the past five years, visiting schools and offering workshops and mini concerts. This year, the Orchestra began offering a similar program in the Seven Oaks School Division, supporting the efforts of that Division’s committed, innovative instructors and their students.

The program features a wide range of fiddle styles, as espoused by Manitoba soloists Claudine St. Arnaud (French-Canadian), Susan Israel (Celtic) and Chris Anstey (Newfoundland). Their solo performances will be intermixed with presentations by the MCO’s own outreach ensemble and with those from fiddle students from Frontier School Division on the first day and from the Seven Oaks School Division for two concerts on the second day.

On-line registration is now open for Orchestras Canada’s National Orchestras Meeting, scheduled to take place in Winnipeg June 20-23, 2010, and co-hosted by the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony.  The meetings feature workshops and presentations led by experts, music, peer meetings and updates from across the country – and all but the pre-conference session will feature simultaneous interpretation, thanks to the support of Great West Life.  We may be biased, but we think it’s a rich and wonderful program!  To learn more, please visit the Winnipeg 2010 pages on our website here.

Orchestras Canada’s donors are at the heart of our work on behalf of Canadian orchestras.  We are grateful to everyone who has made a gift to Orchestras Canada this year, and – thanks to their generosity – we are only $2142 short of our individual fundraising target for the year ending March 31.  With just over three weeks left to go, we know we can reach our goal:  but we need your help. To make a gift to Orchestras Canada, you can:

1.  Visit our giving page at CanadaHelps.org here.
2.  Call Jennifer Caines at the OC office, to make a gift by credit card: 416-366-8834 x221
3.  Mail a cheque to

Orchestras Canada/Orchestres Canada
203-460 rue College Street
Toronto, ON M6G 1A1

March 15 marks the deadline for participation in a new survey of Canadian orchestras’ community engagement programs – and we’ve already been amazed and impressed by the level of participation you’ve shown!  Many thanks to all OC members who have taken the time and contributed to this report.  At the end of January, Jennifer Caines emailed the survey to 71 orchestras; as of earlier this week, 35 orchestras have responded.  We look forward to sharing the results with you later this spring.  If you’d like more information, please get in touch with Jennifer at jennifer[at]oc[dot]ca.

Orchestra News will not be published next week, March 12.  We’ll be back with a blockbuster issue on March 19.

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra launches “Breaking Ground”, its 19th Annual New Music Festival tonight (February 5), with a pre-festival event at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.  The official opening is February 6, and concerts run through to February 12.  Most concerts are led by WSO music director Alexander Mickelthwate.  Featured composers and performers this year include composers Steven Stucky, Derek Charke, Tim Brady, John Psathas and performers Tanya Tagaq, Jenny Lin, and the ensemble Eighth Blackbird.  A particular highlight of this year’s festival is the February 6 world premiere of WSO resident composer Vince Ho’s new work, Arctic Symphony, inspired by a week Dr. Ho spent aboard the icebreaker ‘Amundsen‘ with the scientists engaged in the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study.  The festival also includes “an adrenaline-filled homage to Les Paul, inventor of the electric guitar, with over 20 electric guitarists and the WSO – all on one stage!” – among many other delights.  Festival passes are available for as little as $49 for students.  For more information, you can visit the NMF website here.

The Windsor Canadian Music Festival is also in full swing right now, and runs until tonight.  The festival, a partnership between the Windsor Symphony and the School of Music at the University of Windsor, includes chamber, electro-acoustic and orchestral concerts, panel discussions and ‘happenings’ in venues throughout the university campus and downtown Windsor.  One of the highlighted venues is the Windsor Armouries, an impressive heritage building that’s been identified by the WSO as a potential future home.  Featured composers this year include Robert Lemay, Brent Lee, Jordan Nobles, Robert Rival and Sundar Subramanian.  As well, the work of video artists is prominently featured.   For more information on the WCMF, please visit their website here.

On February 16, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra (led by guest conductor Scott Yoo) will be premiering The Widening Gyre, a new work by Winnipeg composer David R. Scott.  Like the WSO and Dr. Ho, the MCO and Mr. Scott were also artistic partners in the Circumpolar Flaw Lead System Study, and the new work is the product of Mr. Scott’s time aboard the ‘Amundsen’.  For the kinaesthetically inclined, the MCO has posted a series of photographs from the ship, and you can find them here. The program will also feature the premiere of a new work for soprano, guitar and orchestra by Jim Hiscott, entitled The Song of the Stars, based on a Passamaquoddy text.  The concert takes place at the MCO’s home at Westminster United Church.

Eight of Winnipeg’s top professional arts organizations – including the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra – have joined forces to create The Cultured Club, a combined arts and culture calendar and destination marketing portal for Manitoba’s capital city, funded by Destination Winnipeg, Travel Manitoba and Manitoba Homecoming.  The website for the initiative is the suitably titled www.cultureoneverycorner.ca – and it includes a searchable calendar include a wide array of arts and culture events, cleverly designed links, and (of course) the opportunity to sign up for on-line contests and targeted communications.  According to the website, the “mission is to market Winnipeg as Canada’s premiere destination for arts and culture, to provide a gateway to the most current information on performances and shows, and to increase visits and overnight stays in Winnipeg.  We are proud of our thriving arts and culture community and we want to share it with the world.  Thousands of shows. One city. Culture on Every Corner.”

This week, we’ve had reports from two member orchestras about their Annual General Meetings – opportunities to report on their financial, artistic and community activities in 2008-09.  Here’s what we learned!

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Fresh from their western Canada tour with Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra held its AGM on September 30 and led off with the welcome news of its thirteenth consecutive operating surplus on the 2008-09 season.  Paid attendance was 4,208 for the MCO’s nine-concert series in Westminster United Church, with twice that number hearing the MCO in concert on tour in northern Manitoba, across the country and in the United States.  The biggest news of the season, though, was the November appointment of Music Director and Conductor, Anne Manson.  New and newish Canadian music on the season included works by John Estacio, Michael Oesterle and Malcolm Forsyth, and commissioned pieces by Oesterle and Jim Hiscott.  Education was also highlighted, with many hundreds of Winnipeg school children hearing the MCO live in Westminster Church every season; as well, a roving troupe of MCO musicians visited communities in rural Manitoba as part of the Frontier School Division’s Fiddle Program.  The MCO Endowment Fund, administered by The Winnipeg Foundation, continued to grow: in 07/08 the fund held its own, and is now valued at $1.24 million.

Symphony Nova Scotia
Symphony Nova Scotia held its Annual General Meeting recently, and the Halifax-based orchestra also had good news to report.  Highlights included a surplus of $18,500 on revenues of $3.445 million and ticket sales revenues totaling $778,000 – an increase of 8% over the previous year.  Private sector revenues were also up 8% over the previous year.  As well, the Symphony Nova Scotia Foundation reported that its holdings totaled $3.1 million in August, and that the Foundation is on track to reach its $5.5 million goal by the end of 2010.

The Manitoba Chamber Orchestra opened its Winnipeg season last week, took part in a recording session the following morning – and then flew west to start a tour that includes dates in British Columbia and Alberta with percussion soloist Dame Evelyn Glennie. If you’d like to follow the orchestra’s progress (and marvel, as we always do, at the sheer beauty of our western-most province), you can watch an ever growing slide-show here.