Music

photos by MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Quinton (Yung Trybez) Nyce (left) and Darren (Young D) Metz perform for students of Elwick Community School.

Hip-hop duo spread the word about social justice, education at STEM outreach program

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read 2:00 AM CDT

During one of Canada’s busiest music weekends, two celebrated musicians stopped in Winnipeg to entertain 100 or so middle and high school students inside RRC Polytech’s auditorium.

On Friday afternoon in the final hours before spring break, Snotty Nose Rez Kids, a hip-hop duo from Kitamaat Village, B.C., paced the makeshift stage, delivering hits such as Boujee Natives while students jumped and chanted.

Many teachers danced too, overlooking the band’s mild profanity and bird-flipping amid the uplifting message of empowerment and fun.

“We were tired, but now we’re rejuvenated,” said band member Darren (Young D) Metz after seeing so many young people get fired up at their performance.

Advertise With Us

Weather

Mar. 31, 12 PM: -3°c Cloudy with wind Mar. 31, 6 PM: -2°c Cloudy with wind

Winnipeg MB

-3°C, Blowing snow

Full Forecast

Pop music’s problematic relationship with Nazi imagery, fascist ideas explored in new account

Reviewed by Matt Henderson 5 minute read Preview

Pop music’s problematic relationship with Nazi imagery, fascist ideas explored in new account

Reviewed by Matt Henderson 5 minute read Saturday, Mar. 28, 2026

The Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Motorhead, The Sex Pistols, Blondie, Pink Floyd and even John Lennon: all artists and bands in a postwar era that were infatuated with Nazi symbolism, esthetics, language and memorabilia. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin flaunted SS uniforms; John Lennon mimicked Adolf Hitler on stage and collected memorabilia; and Joy Division (and, later, New Order) derived their names from Nazi literature.

All of this happened in plain sight, with hardly a bark from the media. But why, and how? Why did these bands and musicians think brandishing swastikas on their arms, wearing Nazi uniforms or goose-stepping on stage yelling Nazi chants and commands were within the realm of decency? How did this level of blatant antisemitism go relatively unnoticed at the time, and why has there been virtual silence to this day?

These are the questions posed by Daniel Rachel, who in This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika, and the Third Reich pulls apart several decades of obsession, flirtation and outright adoption of antisemitic tendencies of prominent artists in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. A former musician and author of several books on pop music, including Too Young Too Old: the 2 Tone Records Story and The Lost Album of the Beatles: What if the Beatles Hadn’t Split Up?, Rachel is also Jewish and committed to understanding how people could ever contemplate how revelling in totalitarianism, genocide and hate might be rock and roll, punk rock and sexy.

For Rachel, this history — a study of the human experience — is fundamentally a process for him to make sense of his infatuation with pop music, while juxtaposing it with the fact that many of his heroes were antisemitic: “This Ain’t Rock ‘n’ Roll is, in many ways, an attempt to reconcile my adolescent political awakening with my love of pop music.”

Read

Saturday, Mar. 28, 2026

Kristen Sawatzky photo
What started out as a duet turned into the Fu Fu Chi Chi Choir, which currently has 10 members.

Fu Fu Chi Chis bring decade of harmony to first full album

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Preview

Fu Fu Chi Chis bring decade of harmony to first full album

Ben Waldman 4 minute read Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

Most choirs sing about God, grace and gratitude: outfitted in century-old house dresses, Winnipeg’s Fu Fu Chi Chi Choir sings heartfelt odes to drunk dials, diss tracks to booty calls and romantic murder ballads with maggot-coated codas.

Formed in 2015 by Michelle Boulet and Sarah Constible — best known for their work in local theatre with Shakespeare in the Ruins — the choir started because Boulet couldn’t stand working alone. For two years at the Gas Station Arts Centre’s Girls Girls Girls fundraiser, the pair performed as a duet.

“It was kind of theatrical and a bit humiliating,” says the pink-haired Boulet with a laugh. “Then, in the third year, we decided to share the humiliation. We invited 13 women to get up and sing a spiritual about friends who backstab each other, and it went over gangbusters.

“So then we went, ‘That’s the key. More is better. More women is better.’”

Read

Friday, Mar. 20, 2026

MYNXII WHITE PHOTO
From left: Rise Against members Brandon Barnes, Zach Blair, Tim McIlrath and Joe Principe

Rise Against switches up mix of politics and punk

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Preview

Rise Against switches up mix of politics and punk

Eva Wasney 4 minute read Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

Rise Against is doing a lot of doubleheaders on its latest tour, including a two-night stand at Burton Cummings Theatre this weekend.

The politically charged punk rock band from Chicago is trying something new with its live shows — playing smaller venues and stepping away from staple songs to plumb the archives for deep cuts.

“For a band that’s been together for 26 years and 10 records, it’s important to keep it fresh and keep it interesting. It’s like a marriage,” lead guitarist Zach Blair says over the phone in between a pair of shows in Toronto.

Concert goers can still expect to hear hits — such as Savior, The Good Left Undone — alongside music from the band’s latest album, Ricochet, and lesser-known tracks. The latter sometimes requires improvisation.

Read

Thursday, Mar. 19, 2026

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Allan Reid, president and CEO of The JUNO awards, announces that Winnipeg will host the 2027 JUNOS on Thursday.

56th Juno Awards brings the party back to Winnipeg in 2027

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Preview

56th Juno Awards brings the party back to Winnipeg in 2027

Eva Wasney 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

The Juno Awards are coming back to Winnipeg.

The city has been selected to host the 56th edition of the Canadian music award show and its associated events from April 1 to 4, 2027. The Junos were previously held in Winnipeg in 2005 and 2014.

“Winnipeg has always been a city that has had an outsized musical influence,” said Allan Reid, president and CEO of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS), which oversees the awards. “We are so excited to be back and we’re ready to build something truly extraordinary together.

“Get ready for the best Junos ever.”

Read

Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

Supplied
Tommy Douglas Keenan has been too busy acting to record music.

Back on Earth: prolific actor finally records new album

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Preview

Back on Earth: prolific actor finally records new album

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

It’s been 54 years since anybody set foot on the moon, and 16 since Winnipeg songwriter Tom Keenan released a solo album.

You couldn’t accuse Keenan of being reclusive in the interim: one of the city’s most reliable and versatile actors, he’s appeared in more than 50 professional stage, television and film productions since launching his career in the early 2000s, most recently playing MacQueen in Murder on the Orient Express on the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre mainstage, Pozzo in Godot for Shakespeare in the Ruins (a role he’ll reprise for RMTC in 2027) and starring in the pandemic-set feature film Melaleuca.

Yet Keenan’s loaded resumé in those modes of performance have largely taken precedence over his efforts in the realm of indie music, where the actor is no slouch.

“Good things keep getting in the way, which I’m thankful for, but it makes it hard to have any momentum as a professional musician, so it’s always been more of a passion project,” says Keenan, who’s latest album as Tommy Douglas Keenan — that’s his actual middle name — is out today.

Read

Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

Manitoba Music, Ava Kobrinsky feted by Women in Music Canada

2 minute read Thursday, Mar. 12, 2026

Two local institutions have received accolades from Women in Music Canada, an industry organization dedicated to fostering gender equality.

Manitoba Music — a member-based, not-for-profit industry association working to develop and promote the growth and sustainability of the province’s music industry — was named organization of the year, while Ava Kobrinsky, co-founder of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and Home Routes/Chemin Chez Nous, a house-concert network for roots artists, received a special career-achievement honour at an award ceremony in Toronto last week.

“This recognition reflects the dedication of our team, board of directors, Indigenous music steering committee, BPM committee, and the inspiring artists, industry builders, communities, and partners we’re fortunate to work alongside —particularly the women and gender-diverse voices driving change in our community,” Vanessa Kuzina, Manitoba Music executive director, said in a media release.

Local artists Begonia and Rayannah also received nominations for artist of the year and excellence in sound production, respectively.

Learn more about Advertising solutions

Chantal Anderson photo
Matt Berninger, frontman of the National, has been performing originals and covers on his first Canadian solo tour.

Writing on baseballs, playing covers shaped Matt Berninger’s process in latest solo work

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Preview

Writing on baseballs, playing covers shaped Matt Berninger’s process in latest solo work

Jen Zoratti 6 minute read Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

Some writers carry around a notebook to jot down observations, one-liners and any other “Is this anything?” that may one day become “This is something.”

Others use the Notes App on their phones and don’t type at all, instead dictating their ideas while they’re walking the dog.

Matt Berninger writes on baseballs.

The singer-songwriter and frontman of American indie-rock band the National usually likes to spread out when he writes, using Sharpies — so there is an element of permanence — on whiteboards, which is about as opposite from a baseball as you can get. Berninger has a visual art background, and he likes seeing the ideas pile up and collide against each other on a large canvas.

Read

Saturday, Mar. 7, 2026

Kristen Hoebermann photo
Rune Bergmann is music director for three separate organizations in Switzerland, Calgary and Wisconsin.

Norwegian conductor looks to past to find hope for future

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Preview

Norwegian conductor looks to past to find hope for future

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

Rune Bergmann lives in Oslo, but on any given day of the week might find himself in Switzerland, Calgary or Wisconsin, where he’s the music director for three separate organizations.

The Norwegian conductor appears all over North America and Europe as a guest conductor and is in the ‘Peg this weekend for Nordic Horizons with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

But he observes there is a certain patriotic flavour to this concert, which he programmed and conducts.

“It’s a Nordic buffet. A theme that goes through everything is survival, nationalism and the importance of sticking together and being there for each other,” he says.

Read

Thursday, Mar. 5, 2026

Supplied
John Hannah and his double neck guitar.

OBITUARY: Following chart-topping success, legendary Winnipeg musician John Hannah found peace living in obscurity

John Einarson 7 minute read Preview

OBITUARY: Following chart-topping success, legendary Winnipeg musician John Hannah found peace living in obscurity

John Einarson 7 minute read Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026

Long after he fell off the Winnipeg music radar, guitarist and songwriter John Hannah had retained a loyal following.

He had been living in his birth country of Scotland for many years but would frequently come back to Winnipeg to appear at local clubs. For many, he became a bit of a mystery man, a legend with occasional sightings. Although he recently died at age 73 in relative obscurity, Hannah left an indelible mark on Canadian music and on me.

Hannah came into my orbit through bandmate and high school buddy Ralph James. “John was in my Grade 10 class at Grant Park,” James recalls, “and I noticed The Who stickers on his binder.”

Hannah’s family arrived in Canada in 1957. His father was an architect and artist. Hannah had been at a boarding school in Switzerland prior to arriving at Grant Park High School. A huge British rock music fan, Hannah had been playing guitar since age seven. In the fall of 1969, James invited me to a jam at drummer Rod McFayden’s Campbell Street house. Hannah was there and the jam ultimately led to the formation of electric blues band Pig Iron.

Read

Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026

MATT HORSEMAN PHOTO
Drive-Thru Confessional is Mise en Scene’s first full-length release in six years.

Local duo’s latest project takes a trip on the road to growing up

Eva Wasney and Ben Waldman 5 minute read Preview

Local duo’s latest project takes a trip on the road to growing up

Eva Wasney and Ben Waldman 5 minute read Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

Inspiration for Mise en Scene’s new album struck, fittingly, while Stefanie Johnson was on the road.

The pandemic was raging and she was heading up to Gimli, home at the time, when she spotted a church promoting drive-thru confessionals.

“I liked the mixing of metaphors, the idea of fast food and fast cheapness mixed with something vulnerable and secretive and special,” says Johnson, vocalist and guitarist of the local indie-rock outfit alongside drummer Jodi Dunlop.

Drive-Thru Confessional, out March 6, is Mise en Scene’s first full-length release in six years following the band’s 2023 EP, Reality Bites. The record is full of hazy, driving guitar and stories about the long, winding journey of growing up.

Read

Friday, Feb. 27, 2026

JOHANNA BERGHORN / SONY MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT
British pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, 23, performs with the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra on Wednesday.

A prodigy cometh

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Preview

A prodigy cometh

Conrad Sweatman 5 minute read Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

It’s easy to laugh at clickbait.

But what is more attention-grabbing: “The Kanneh-Masons are musical PRODIGIES!” or “demonstrating musical insight, technical acuity and an engaging performing persona” and “maturity in performance and interpretation … an uncanny phenomenon”?

The latter are descriptions of 23-year-old British pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason by the European classical music press, which has an uncanny knack for sounding like stuffy Victorians.

The first quote is the title of a 2015 Britain’s Got Talent YouTube video for a performance that helped bring Kanneh-Mason and her siblings to international fame.

Read

Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

CONRAD SWEATMAN / FREE PRESS
Ed Ackerman was sketching when he had a chance meeting with Canadian indie rocker Mac DeMarco.

Sketches by eccentric local artist hit the Hollywood Bowl

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Preview

Sketches by eccentric local artist hit the Hollywood Bowl

Conrad Sweatman 6 minute read Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

Mac DeMarco, one of Canada’s most celebrated indie musicians, has chosen Winnipegger Ed Ackerman’s art to grace posters for his upcoming fall concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and Carnegie Hall.

How DeMarco, who performed two packed concerts at Burton Cummings Theatre in December, came to select Ackerman’s work hardly followed a conventional process.

Ackerman was drawing sketches by himself at the Yellow Dog Tavern across the street from the Burt the night of DeMarco’s first show. Afterward, audiences flooded into the bar and a group of young people sat down at Ackerman’s table and began asking him about his art.

“And then they sent this other (man) over, saying, ‘Go, go look at this old guy’s stuff.’ And it was Mac DeMarco,” Ackerman says of the Edmonton musician, whose 2014 album Salad Days was shortlisted for the Polaris Prize.

Read

Monday, Feb. 23, 2026

Supplied
Bruce Leperre was a tireless promoter and lover of music. He died Tuesday at age 65.

Dauphin radio personality championed local musicians

Aileen Goos 5 minute read Preview

Dauphin radio personality championed local musicians

Aileen Goos 5 minute read Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

The news of Bruce Leperre’s death this week felt like listening to the last track on a favourite album — the ending was inevitable, but the silence still came as a surprise.

For decades, he was the familiar voice on CKDM in Dauphin whose enthusiasm was genuine and infectious. He talked about music in a way that made you feel it.

But in recent years, his voice grew quieter; the stories of artists he met or mentored were harder to recall. And in 2018, at the age of 57, Leperre was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Even as the disease progressed and made conversations harder, his eyes lit up when he heard a familiar song or saw a familiar face.

Leperre died on Tuesday in Ste. Rose General Hospital from complications related to Alzheimer’s. He was 65.

Read

Friday, Feb. 13, 2026

MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Anneli Loepp Thiessen, CMU music instructor, (left) and Sandra Koop Harder, CMU’s vice-president external.

Despair over conflict in Minneapolis prompts ‘sing resistance’ event at CMU

John Longhurst 4 minute read Preview

Despair over conflict in Minneapolis prompts ‘sing resistance’ event at CMU

John Longhurst 4 minute read Friday, Jan. 30, 2026

Winnipeggers who feel alone and helpless to do anything about what’s happening in Minneapolis can gather with others at Canadian Mennonite University on Monday evening to “sing resistance.”

Organized as an opportunity to sing in solidarity with people of of the Twin Cities, the free event takes place at the university, located at Grant Avenue and Shaftesbury Boulevard, at 7 p.m.

“It’s not a concert,” said Sandra Koop Harder, vice-president external at CMU. “It’s the community coming together to raise our voices in the face of injustice, fear and the uneasy times we are living through.”

The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolis has been under siege since Jan. 6, when 2,000 armed federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived to crack down on what the Trump administration has described as massive fraud committed by thousands of illegal immigrants.

Read

Friday, Jan. 30, 2026

Buio Assis photo
Some of the songs on To Keep were written by Dominique Adams a decade ago.

Solo album built on collaboration

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Preview

Solo album built on collaboration

Ben Waldman 6 minute read Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026

Dominique Adams doesn’t mind playing the waiting game.

Many of the vignette-driven lyrics, gentle harmonies and mesmerizing vocal runs that populate the local songwriter’s debut record, To Keep, were in Adams’ back pocket for as long as a decade. The title track wraps around a piece of advice her vocal teacher Jeanette Gallant gave her in 2016 when Adams was a music student in Red Deer, Alta.: keep yourself and don’t look behind.

And even though the record — captured in Winnipeg at Liam Duncan’s Better Daze Studios — was released last July, Adams is only getting around to celebrating it with an official release show tonight at Sidestage, opening with a circle of songwriters — Cassidy Mann, Sam Fournier, Laura June Rose and Jacob Brodovsky — sharing their music with the crowd.

That group approach to performance is typical for Adams, who learned to sing, perform and arrange in choral and musical theatre settings during her upbringing in Edmonton. Family gatherings routinely wound down with sing-alongs, her brother on the piano and her father on the guitar. If there’s a reason Adams prefers to bide her time, it’s because the artist would rather jam with a pack.

Read

Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026

March 31, 2026

Notification Settings

Staging Breaking News

Staging Recommended Reads