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WSO season kicks off with two fateful fifths

On a dark and stormy autumnal night, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra opened its 2026-27 season with a pair of equally foreboding works both driven by fate — and ultimately, the triumphant power of the human spirit.

Saturday night’s Masterworks program, titled Beethoven 5 and Tchaikovsky 5 and led by Daniel Raiskin, also officially introduced the WSO’s new composer-in-residence, Kelly-Marie Murphy, to the weekend crowd of 1,720. She was met with enthusiastic applause and cheers upon taking the stage.

The 120-minute evening — and the WSO season — launched with the Ottawa-based Murphy’s Dark Nights, Bright Stars, Vast Universe, commissioned by the National Arts Centre Orchestra under the baton of its former music director Alexander Shelley in 2023.

With the internationally renowned composer’s compelling works heard on this stage during many a Winnipeg New Music Festival, local music fans (and music critics) are still jumping for joy over this truly fine appointment.

Northern style

North of North is partnering with the Winnipeg Art Gallery-Qaumajuq to celebrate the way it has propelled authentic northern fashion into the global spotlight at the gallery’s special edition of Crafted on the Catwalk tonight, featuring fashion and design from Manitoba, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, Nunatsiavut and Nunavik.

Arnaquq-Baril and series stars Anna Lambe and Zorga Qaunaq spoke to the Free Press ahead of tonight’s catwalk show.

Legislation needed on vacant buildings

There is something deeply backwards about a system that lets a property owner keep a building boarded up indefinitely while neighbours are left to live with the consequences.

In Winnipeg, as long as the owner pays the taxes, follows the city’s vacant-building rules and pays the required fees, there is no hard deadline for the building to be dealt with.

The building can remain a neighbourhood eyesore. It can attract drug use and crime. It can become a fire hazard. And the people living nearby can be left wondering how long they are expected to put up with it.

Yet when Premier Wab Kinew was asked Friday whether his government would change provincial legislation to give Winnipeg the power to impose a time limit on such properties, he declined to answer.

Esoteric hair works meant to muss up mores

Sandra Klowak likes playing with hair, though not all of it is hers.

Every day she twists and pulls, deftly twirling and looping strands into intricate shapes.

Petals bloom beneath her fingers, lank locks and wavy curls coil into tightly furled roses and wide-open blossoms with buttons for pistils.

The artist weaves and sculpts body matter into art for clients who want to memorialize loved ones in an intimate and profoundly personal manner.