The Winnipeg Wind Ensemble will bring its 2025–26 season to a close with Dreams and Fantasies, a program designed to explore creativity, ambition, and the journey from inspiration to realization. The concert, taking place Sunday, April 26th at the Lutheran Church of the Cross, blends music rooted in dreamlike imagery with works shaped by perseverance and vision.
Artistic director Ginny Helmer explains that the foundation of the concert came from pairing Peter Graham’s Harrison’s Dream with a new work by Winnipeg composer Chris Byman. “He had done this piece for woodwind quintet, Sky Harbor, which is sort of based on a Dungeons and Dragons game,” Helmer explains, “so those two things put together… gave me the idea.”
From there, the broader theme began to take shape, incorporating both literal and metaphorical interpretations of dreams. “I thought, ‘Well, you know, why not a Bach fantasy?’ And then, of course, I had to think of Symphony Fantastique. It all just kind of came together.”
The story and challenge of Harrison’s Dream
At the heart of the program is Harrison’s Dream, a dramatic and technically demanding work inspired by a real historical problem. Helmer recounts the story behind the piece, rooted in maritime disasters of the early 18th century. “Although they were pretty good at calculating latitude, they really weren’t very good at calculating longitude, so they always thought they were someplace they weren’t, and then they would run aground on the rocks,” Helmer says.
The solution came from an unlikely figure. “This man came forward. He was a carpenter and an amateur clock maker. And his idea was that if he could make a clock that was accurate enough to calculate the time on land as well as on ship, that they would be able to use that information to solve the issue. And he did actually win the prize.”
Musically, the piece mirrors both the mechanical precision of timekeeping and the emotional weight of life at sea – a challenge mirrored by the score that the ensemble will perform. “It’s like, eating an elephant,” says Helmer. “We’ve just been taking it one chunk at a time.” She adds that the work reveals more with each rehearsal, including excerpts from hymns and sea spells from when sailors would lose their lives on the ocean. “The more I look at it, the more I study it, the more I see,” Helmer says.
Showcasing young talent and musical virtuosity
Another highlight of the concert is the Concertino for Flute by Cécile Chaminade, featuring soloist Angelia Meng, a student at Linden Christian School. Helmer speaks highly of the young musician’s abilities and reputation. “She’s been sort of a force to be reckoned with in the flute world for a while.”
The piece itself presents significant challenges. “There are lots of things where you have to play 6 notes in one beat or 7 notes in one beat,” says Helmer, adding that the soloist also has to add their own musicality to the piece while being in balance with the wind ensemble.
This challenge is made even more extreme by the addition of the Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute Band to the ensemble. For Helmer, this partnership reflects both musical and educational values. “It will just be really interesting to put those two groups together and to get our musicians to kind of interact with the younger students and maybe give them the benefit of their experience.” The joint performance will also feature Shenandoah, arranged by Frank Ticheli, a piece that aligns naturally with the concert’s themes.
The event also marks a moment of transition, as MBCI band director Andrew Klassen prepares to retire. Helmer reflects on his impact and longstanding connection to the ensemble: “Andrew… conducted the wind ensemble for four years in 1994 to 1998,” Helmer shares, adding that Klassen has remained involved with the group as a concert emcee. “He’s just a fantastic musician and he plays many instruments well,”
Fantastical narratives and musical storytelling
The concert’s theme of dreams takes on a more literal and dramatic dimension in selections from Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. “The whole Symphonie fantastique is about an… opium dream where the artist is fixated, literally, on Harriet Smithson, an actress,” Helmer shares of its history. A quite different colour is required for the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor of J.S. Bach where Baroque phrasing and intricate layering replace dreamlike textures.
Rounding out the program is Chris Byman’s Sky Harbor, an imaginative, narrative-driven work that follows a fantastical storyline involving an airship. “It looks like a sailing ship, but through magical means, it lifts off the ground and becomes a sailing airship,” Helmer says. “The last movement, they take off and into the sunset, so to speak.”
Dreams and Fantasies takes place on Sunday, April 26th at 3:00 p.m. at the Lutheran Church of the Cross, 560 Arlington Street.