Hello, I am Alexander Mickelthwate, Music Director for the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) and your Travel Manitoba Arts & Culture Ambassador. There are plenty of events to keep all of us inspired and entertained through the frosty winter months and into spring - as the winter gets colder, that’s when the music really starts to heat up!

I’m especially looking forward to conducting the opening concert of our 2010 New Musical Festival on February 6. The theme of this year’s festival is Earth and you won’t want to miss the world premiere of WSO composer-in-residence Vincent Ho’s Arctic Symphony, a piece that was inspired by his travels to the Canadian North. We also welcome distinguished guest scientist, Dr. David Barber from the University of Manitoba who will provide a special presentation in celebration of International Polar Year. The New Music Festival runs February 6-12.

The Manitoba Opera continues its season in April with opera’s favourite bad girl. Carmen, a story filled with seduction, jealousy, and deceit, features music by Georges Bizet and includes favourites such as “Habanera,” “Seguildilla,” and “Toreador Song.” The Manitoba Opera performs Carmen on April 17, April 20 and April 23 at the Concert Hall.

If you are looking for a concert to get you warmed up this winter, the University of Winnipeg Virtuosi series concert The Passion of Spain on January 30 is for you. The WSO Baroque String Quartet teams up with Madrid-born soprano Maria Luz Alvarez to bring the magnificent music of the baroque era to the Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall at the University of Winnipeg.

Another festival I look forward to in February (aside from the New Music Festival) is Festival du Voyageur. Being a music director, I love hearing how French-Canadian, Métis and Aboriginal music has evolved. It’s always refreshing to be immersed in another culture with so much history. Festival Du Voyageur takes place February 12 to 21 at the Fort Gibraltar headquarters and at various locations around St. Boniface.

I always enjoy opportunities when I can travel to other Manitoba communities outside of Winnipeg. I am looking forward to visiting Brandon twice more this season, as the WSO performs Dvoràk’s New World Symphony on February 21 and Bernstein, Gershwin, Ravel on March 21.

I hope I have encouraged you to get out and enjoy the incredible amount of arts and culture events that Manitoba has to offer. This column would need to be ten times longer to fit everything that’s going on, so please let me know which events are your favourite! I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you out and about in Manitoba!

The humble warming hut is getting a makeover with an inaugural art and architecture exposition on the Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail at The Forks.

Five teams, each consisting of prominent architects and landscape architects paired with an artist, will create and construct warming huts as part of The Warming Hut: An Art + Architecture Exposition. The huts will feature both modern and traditional materials and inspirations. The event, part of Manitoba Homecoming 2010, has attracted the attention of some of the city’s best architects and artists, as well as a few of the world’s best, including Antoine Predock, architect of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Pre-fabrication work on the structures is to begin on January 25 at The Forks. The area around the Canopy will house the structures as they are finished from January 28 – 30. The public is welcome to view the pieces as they are being completed by their teams. Once complete, each piece will be pulled down on to Assiniboine Credit Union River Trail where they will stay for the duration of the winter.

The hope is for The Warm Hut exposition to become an annual event, and even a competition, giving architects from around the world a chance to work with a medium that many don’t normally use – ice.

Congratulations to Janice Murray of Winnipeg for winning the It’s My Moment contest grand prize, a Manitoba Homecoming 2010 VIP travel package.

Here is Janice’s winning submission to It’s My Moment:

My daughter and I were living in Vancouver and decided on the spur of the moment, to make a trip to Manitoba to visit with family. At that time my daughter was infatuated with sunflowers. She had her bedroom decorated in everything sunflowers. I guess I never thought anything of it but as we were nearing the turn off to Stonewall and it was raining slightly, I looked over at her and saw she had tears in her eyes. I asked her, “Diana, what ever is wrong?”

She said “Mom, look” and to my left was a field of sunflowers all in bloom. We stopped and got out and took pictures and it was one of the most “momentous moments” of our being together and sharing something. I’ll never forget it and for that brief time, we were together. Diana now lives in Australia but still has sunflowers all around her. For her to be able to make that trip again would mean the world to both of us.

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