We won’t say we’ve left best for last, but what a way to end the season!

Sarah McElravy  one of Canada’s top string players, joins our Music Director  Anne Manson  to perform Shostakovich’s last work, his exquisite Viola Sonata. A golden trinity.  

As someone who’s mastered both violin and viola, it’s no wonder that Sarah is considered “a consummate musician” (Naples Daily News). At this concert, it will be her 1785 Lorenzo Storioni viola — rather than her 1791 Ferdinando Gagliano violin — on which she wows audiences with her “exquisitely sculpted … divine sound” (The Prague Post). 

It wouldn’t be a signature Shostakovich piece if it weren’t shot through with themes of struggle.  His experiments with modernist sounds sometimes got him in serious trouble with Soviet cultural authorities. Not one to go down without a fight, sly critiques of communism can be found throughout his art. This is reflected in his DSCH motif; a war-cry to individualism that weaves in and out of his body of work.


Find out about 
our Pre-Concert Events!


However, if there’s a struggle in the Viola Sonata it seems to be with S’s impending death. Composed as his health was declining, the work premiered three months after his death in 1975. But it’s a gorgeous work that ends with redemption: inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, the sonata is “catharsis … life, struggle, overcoming, purification by light, exit into immortality.”

A note on our matinees: our matinee concerts are casual afternoon performances (one hour in duration, with no intermission); students will be in attendance, and the program may be shortened from the evening program. Some seating restrictions apply.

1pm, Wednesday, 29 May 2024
CA$37.00
7.30pm, Wednesday, 29 May 2024
CA$37.00

The concerts begin at 1.00pm and 7.30pm on Wednesday, May 29th, in Crescent Arts Centre ), 525 Wardlaw Avenue. Casual tickets will be available 7 July 2023 here and on MCO’s Ticketline at 204-783-7377.

Manitoba Chamber Orchestra
Anne Manson, Music Director
Karl Stobbe, Concertmaster
Crescent Arts Centre, 525 Wardlaw Avenue
1.00pm & 7.30pm, Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Anne Manson, conductor
Sarah McElravy, viola

The Marilyn Huband Concert

George Walker
Lyric for strings

Dmitri Shostakovich
Viola Sonata in c MAjor, op. 147
—arr. for solo viola and full strings by Vladimir Mendelssohn

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
SyMphony no. 28 in c MAjor, K 200

Concert sponsor / LBL Holdings

Season  media sponsors / Classic 107, Golden West Radio & Winnipeg Free Press