MCO’s 2023/24 season!

FEW ARTS ORGANIZATIONS CONNECT the local to the international the way the MCO does. Just look at our 23/24 season. It boasts some of the world’s greatest soloists; it also features tomorrow’s stars, many from around our parts.

You experience them up close in the intimate, acoustically superb environment of Crescent Arts Centre (Crescent Fort Rouge United Church) with 9 concert programs to choose from.

We’re reconnecting and cultivating the best in Canadian music — together!

Subscription packages 

TAKE ADVANTAGE OF EARLY BIRD RATES! With savings of up to 25% compared to regular casual ticket prices, early bird subscriptions are the cheapest way to enjoy MCO’s 23/24 season. Regular subscription rates will come into effect 15 June 2023.

Benefits for all levels of Subscription:

  • Savings up to 25% compared to regular casual ticket prices.
  • Entitles you to buy extra casual tickets at highly discounted rate
  • Free exchange of tickets within season for in-person attendance

● 7.30pm, Wed. 6 September 2023 / Awadagin Pratt, one of the “great American pianists … of our time” (WGBH), famously earned degrees from the Peabody Conservatory in conducting and violin as well as piano. It’s to play piano on a Bach concerto that this polymath joins us, leaving the strings for our crack orchestra and the baton in the capable hands of Anne Manson. What a season-opener!

● 7.30pm, Wed. 4 October 2023 / With equal parts swagger and mind-melting virtuosity, Timothy Chooi brings down the house every time he performs with the MCO. One of Canada’s greatest young violinists, Timothy performs on a program featuring works by Dvořák, Tchaikovsky, Boccherini and others with Anne Manson conducting. We can’t wait.

● 1.00pm & 7.30pm, Wed, 25 October 2023 / The MCO’s 2019 premiere of Dinuk Wijeratne’s Gajaga Vannama was a true event. The audience leapt to their feet as Dinuk conducted and played piano and performed vocals on a new work; a tapestry of rollicking Sri Lankan rhythms and Mozartian colour. Dinuk reprises this work, one of Canada’s most important in recent history, and presents others with the MCO. Absolutely not to be missed.

● 7.30pm, Thurs, 9 November 2023 / At last: Ariel Barnes, “the most outstanding Canadian cellist of his generation” (Bramwell Tovey), is back! The MCO favourite premieres a new cello concerto by Glenn Buhr on a riveting program also featuring works by Pärt and Copland under Tania Miller’s baton!

● 7.30pm, Wed, 20 March 2024 / Ehnes, Lisiecki, Brueggergosman — just some of the major Canadian talents to whom we’ve helped introduce Winnipeggers. If you haven’t already seen her perform, trust us when we tell you that soprano Lara Secord-Haid — a rising opera star praised by the New York Times — will knock your socks off.

● 7.30pm, Wed. 27 March 2024 / Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, Palais Garnier — just some of the prestigious stages Venezuelan soprano Maria Brea has already graced in her fast-rising career. Maria makes 
her Winnipeg debut under the baton of Anne Manson in a concert that includes Mozart, Haydn, and irresistible Afro-Cuban inspired music by Odaline de la Martinez.

● 1.00pm & 7.30pm, Wed, 10 April 2024 / Will you miss the chance to see Jeneba Kanneh-Mason before she’s a global sensation? At just 19, the pianist is already catching the attention of The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, & Decca Classics for whom she recorded a recent, celebrated album. Jeri Lynne Johnson conducts a program that features Mozart’s gorgeous Piano Concerto No. 23 and more.

● 7.30pm, Wed, 17 April 2024 / You’ll know Desiree Abbey as among the most constant virtuosos on the MCO’s stage. At this concert, the indispensable Desi shifts from MCO principal cellist to soloist under the baton of Jean-Marie Zeitouni, one of the brightest conducting talents working in Canada today. Desi will premiere a cello concerto written for her by Jamaican-Canadian composer Ted Runcie.

● 1.00pm & 7.30pm, Wed, 29 May 2024 / We won’t say we’ve left best for last, but what a way to end the season: Sarah McElravy, one of Canada’s great violists, joining Anne Manson and the MCO to perform Shostakovich’s last work, his exquisite Viola Concerto (op. 147). Inspired by Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, the concerto is “catharsis … life, struggle, overcoming, purification by light, exit into immortality.” It’s also some of the most moving music you’ll hear this spring.