Harry Stafylakis doesn’t want to think about next Thursday. Not yet anyway.
It’s hard to imagine how he won’t be able to think about it. The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra is performing his third symphony, “Beyond Horizon”, after all. But the concert that the symphony will be performed in, the final one in the 2026 Winnipeg New Music Festival, will also mark the end of Stafylakis’s tenure as the curator of the festival that he has presided over for a decade.
“I’m sure I’ll be choked up,” he says, looking ahead to the concert entitled Sunset. “It really just made sense, just one big symphony. Let’s just end it in a traditional, classic, big emphatic way. I’m sure going to feel it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=/9UsAkXE7NL4
Sunset is a fitting conclusion to the eight-day festival which begins its six-concert run in earnest on Wednesday. It will mark the tenth festival under Stafylakis’s watch since he joined the WSO as its composer-in-residence back in 2016. Since then, the festival has evolved from its early roots under the baton of founding artistic director Bramwell Tovey and has grown to include the Michael Nesbitt Composers Institute and numerous Canadian and world premieres from some of the biggest names in contemporary orchestral and chamber music.
This experience is one that Stafylakis could not have anticipated, nor would he have wanted to. “The beauty of mystery and discovery and the unknown is one of the beauties of living life,” he smiles. “I wouldn’t change anything. I think it’s been wonderful and I love it.”
“If anybody tells you that they have a perfect image of what the pieces [are] before they start writing the notes, they’re lying,” he continues, adding that this openness has come in equally handy in composing his own music and in programming the festival over the last decade. “You start to glom things together and eventually, something emerges.”
Engaging artistically with the big issues
What has emerged for the 2026 iteration of the festival is a series of concerts and works that comment on what is front of mind for people as we start a new year. This includes concerts themed around social justice, the rise of technology and the encroachment of A.I. “As fatiguing as that can be – and I’m sure we’re all overloaded talking about it – art has a beautiful way of being able to access even difficult or tiring or anxiety-inducing conversations and topics in a way that can be cathartic and beautiful,” Stafylakis says.
One of the ways in which the festival addresses a difficult subject head on is through its concert on January 24. Subtitled “A.I. Rhythm Evolution”, the program features percussionist Lisa Pegher performing in collaboration with composers from Stafylakis’ ICEBERG New Music collective. The concert will use electronics, multimedia elements and generative A.I. into a musical narrative that sees acoustic percussion elements slowly being joined by technological elements.
The space in which this concert is being performed – a first for the festival – also highlights the subject matter at play. StudioLab xR is a new extended reality training studio on Portage Avenue through New Media Manitoba that will bring the electronic elements of this program to life. “It’s kind of a self-contained space where we could enter and have visual-oral experiences in a controlled studio environment,” Stafylakis explains.
Greek inspiration as distinguished guest composer
Winnipeg New Music Festival audiences will have several chances to interact with the music of Christopher Theonfanidis. A composition professor at the Yale School of Music, Stafylakis was first introduced to his music while a student at McGill University.
“I was struggling a little bit, had a tendency to write expressive, lyrical, melody-focused music,” Stafylakis recalls of his studies, adding that it was his Greek sensibilities that were contributing to this. “At some point, my teacher Jean Lesage said, ‘You should check out the music of Christopher Theofanidis.’”
Stafylakis remembers being blown away by Theofanidis’s work and knows that his musical language will leave a lasting impact on the festival. “Super lyrical, super melodic, and a master of orchestration,” he describes. “Rarely do I hear something so glowing.”
The Winnipeg New Music Festival officially begins with its Launchpad concert on Wednesday night featuring the members of the Michael Nesbitt Composers Institute. Christopher Theofanidis’s music will first be shared on January 23 in a program called Sunrise. More details about all concerts in the festival and a link to tickets is available through the festival’s website.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source classic107.com ’
