Next week, U of M students and faculty will present Every Freeze is Different, a concert featuring contemporary music, improvisation and live digital visual art.

According to Victoria Sparks, an instructor of percussion at the university and one of the concert’s directors, Every Freeze is Different is part of a concert series called Re-Sound, which was created in partnership with the Winnipeg New Music Festival.

Performers include the U of M Percussion Ensemble, the U of M eXperimental Improv Ensemble and the Winnipeg Chamber Winds Collective. Students and faculty from the school of art will also create digital art in response to the music in real time.

Every Freeze is Different will start with “Threads,” a suite composed by American composer Paul Lansky. Sparks described it as a collaborative effort involving multiple art forms.

“We have an ensemble that’s called the eXperimental Improv Ensemble, and they work in the ways that you create music on the fly […] So what we’re going to do is, the percussion ensemble is going to play a short movement, maybe two or three minutes, and then the eXperimental Improv Ensemble is going to do a live improvised response to that movement. So we’re going to partner these four movements and four responses,” she said.

“And then this is where we’ve worked with the students from the school of art. So there’s two master students in the school of art, one has been assigned to the percussion ensemble and one to the eXperimental Improv Ensemble, and so the artwork will also be responsive back and forth between the two groups.”

Following “Threads,” the Winnipeg Chamber Winds Collective will perform three works by Canadian composers.

Jacquie Dawson, an associate professor in the Desautels faculty of music and the director of the collective, said she founded the ensemble a few years ago.

“I, a couple of years ago, established this professional chamber winds ensemble, which is comprised of professional musicians in the community […] musicians and professors at the faculty of music, and in addition, some recent graduates who are aspiring professional musicians,” Dawson said.

“The establishment of this group immediately became affiliated with this Re-Sound project which Tori [Sparks] has a strong lead in, and so it just kind of organically unfolded to become a partnership, and the Re-Sound project became a logical and meaningful opportunity for this Winnipeg Chamber Winds Collective ensemble to engage in, and it kind of started to build from grassroots up. So that is where that partnership came to be.”

The collective will perform “The Great Flood,” a piece by Manitoban composers Karen Sunabacka and Joyce Clouston, based on a Cree creation story. An Elder will introduce the work to the audience.

The second piece is “Stone’s Throw,” composed by Jocelyn Morlock, a late Manitoban composer.

“‘Stone’s Throw’ is a minimalist work, celebrating the repetitiveness of women’s work, is how she describes it […] The stone’s throw is an allusion to the washboards and the stones and doing the laundry, so the piece has a lot of cycles and rhythms that go and repeat. It’s really quite fascinating,” Sparks said.

The third piece is “Every Freeze is Different” by Yellowknife composer Carmen Braden, and it is accompanied with live digital artwork created by school of art faculty members Derek Brueckner, Mark Neufeld and Freya Björg Olafson. This piece is also the source for the concert’s title.

“In Manitoba, every winter has its own unique qualities and characteristics, so I think it’s just a great title for a winter program,” Sparks explained.

In addition to directing performances at the university, both Dawson and Sparks are involved in community outreach initiatives. They were able to make the concert free and expand the series beyond the campus thanks to funds provided by the university.

“This is the third year of the Re-Sound series, and this year we were able to grow the project. We applied for a Strategic Initiative Support Fund from the U of M to expand the project, so instead of doing just the one evening concert, which we’ve done for the past two years, we’re doing the evening concert, but we’re also going to do four more performances, two in our concert hall and two off campus for school groups,” Sparks explained.

“We’re really excited to welcome up to six or seven hundred students onto campus on Jan. 29 for school programs, and then we’re also going to high schools in Selkirk and St. Laurent to give this performance in those communities as well.”

Additionally, Dawson noted the series’ focus on contemporary Canadian music.

“What we’re especially excited about with these programs is that, and in keeping with the U of M Strategic Initiatives Fund and our own mandate both with the Re-Sound series and the Winnipeg Chamber Winds, is that we’re really promoting Canadian content both by way of the composers themselves, who are all Canadian, but also the content of the music being performed,” Dawson added.

Every Freeze is Different promises to be a multi-sensory experience for concertgoers.

“It is the first time we’ve collaborated with the school of art in the presentation of the works and the new ways of experiencing them. And bringing that experience to the audience through visual and musical art and to be doing that in the new [Desautels] hall is going to be a real celebration I think, and a wonderful experience for everyone,” Dawson said.

The concert will take place at the Desautels Concert Hall on Jan. 22 at 7:30 p.m. with a reception at 9 p.m. Tickets are free, but registration at Showpass is recommended.