The Winnipeg Arts Council is proud to present Sing me a song you’ve (never) heard before, an exploration of words that give us place, a sense of home in the unknown.
It’s all part of City of Song: a celebration of Winnipeg’s 150th birthday taking place throughout 2024. City of Song showcases the best of Winnipeg’s talents and creates spaces for Winnipeggers to engage in the power of singing with friends and neighbours across the city.
Featuring artists from across disciplines, Sing me a song… is the world premiere of Too Far to Walk, a song cycle composed by Karen Sunabacka with poetry by John Samson Fellows. Sunabacka takes existing text from Samson Fellows’ work as lyricist for The Weakerthans and as a solo artist, and resets them with new original compositions for piano (Lisa Rumpel) and voice (Aaron Hutton).
This exciting new work was commissioned with the generous support of the Winnipeg Arts Council and City of Song, and will be performed by Lisa Rumpel and tenor Aaron Hutton, two of the city’s most renowned and in-demand operatic musicians. The night will also include a special collaboration between Winnipeg Poet Laureate Chimwemwe Undi and cellist Nathan Krahn, as well as a performance by acclaimed singer-songwriter Theresa Thor.
This event is presented in partnership with 101.5 UMFM.
About the Artists
Karen Sunabacka
Composer Karen Sunabacka often finds inspiration from puzzles, stories and her Métis and mixed European heritage. She has deep roots in the Red River Settlement (what is now known as Manitoba, Canada) and feels a strong connection to the Métis, Scottish, Swedish and Finnish cultures. This mix of cultural connections sometimes creates conflicts and new perspectives which she finds both interesting and challenging. Her music reflects this cultural mix through the exploration of the sounds and stories of the Canadian prairies.
John Samson Fellows
John is a talk-singing sober leftist vegetarian Quaker who lives in Winnipeg, Treaty One Territory, with Christine Fellows. He is a singer-songwriter and best known as the frontman of the Canadian indie folk/rock band The Weakerthans. He also played bass in the punk band Propagandhi during the mid-1990s. Today, Samson is making music under his own name, John K. Samson. You can find the arts, crafts and musics he and Christine make at their family store, Vivat Virtute, the Vivat Virtute bandcamp, and on Instagram @vivat_virtute.
Lisa Rumpel
Praised for her "fierce artistry” and “poetic” pianism, Winnipeg-based pianist Lisa Rumpel is passionate about communicating classical music to a variety of audiences. She is an alumnus of the Franz Schubert Institute, Vancouver International Song Institute, Opera NUOVA, the University of Manitoba and Brandon University.
Since completing her Master of Music (Collaborative Piano) at the University of Manitoba in 2015, Lisa has been an active member of the Manitoba music community. She is a sought-after vocal collaborator and coach, chamber musician, choral pianist, teacher, adjudicator, and board member.
Aaron Hutton
Manitoba-born and award-winning singer, actor, adjudicator, and educator, Aaron has performed with some of Winnipeg’s premier theatres such as Rainbow Stage, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, Dry Cold Productions, Prairie Theatre Exchange, and Manitoba Theatre for Young People. Aside from his stage performing, Aaron has flourished as a soloist with some of Winnipeg’s most distinguished choral, orchestral, and chamber ensembles, including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, Canzona: Winnipeg’s Baroque Music Ensemble, the Winnipeg Singers, the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, and Manitoba Opera.
Dawn Bruch-Wiens completed her Bachelor of Music in voice at McGill University. The singer returned to Winnipeg and graduated with her Post-Baccalaureate and Master of Music degree at The University of Manitoba where she studied with Tracy Dahl. As a “mesmerizing” singer with “effervescent vocal agility” (Opera Canada), Dawn has appeared with Manitoba Opera, The Little Opera Company, Manitoba Underground Opera, Groundswell, The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera Studio Weimar and Opera on the Avalon. Dawn has taught private voice lessons for over 16 years and in the fall of 2018, she began teaching at the post-secondary level at Canadian Mennonite University. As a member of NATS, she believes that studying and instructing voice are lifelong learning opportunities for both student and teacher. Dawn is passionate about the festival movement and the learning opportunities it provides as she has been involved at all levels as a performer, teacher or adjudicator for over twenty-five years.
Chimwemwe Undi
Chimwemwe Undi is a poet, writer and editor based on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her work has appeared in Arc Poetry Magazine, Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature, Canthius, Prairie Fire, Room Magazine, CBC Manitoba, BBC World and others, and at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Verses Festival of Words and the Edinburgh International Book Festival. In 2020, Chim was named one of CBC Manitoba’s Future 40. In 2022, she received the John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards. Her debut full-length collection, Scientific Marvel, will be published by House of Anansi Press in 2024. She is Winnipeg Poet Laureate for 2023 and 2024.
Nathan Krahn
Nathan Krahn is a cellist and composer who has worked in Winnipeg’s experimental, folk, and indie music scenes. He has composed works performed at Cluster Music Festival, written string arrangements for TWIN, Eagle Lake Owls, Great Wealth, French Press, From Giants, and more. He lives and works on Treaty 1 territory, in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Theresa Thor
Theresa performs traditional, contemporary, and original music as a pianist, collaborator, and vocalist. Highlight performances include concerts for Brandon Chamber Players, Virtuosi Concerts, Send and Receive, Nuit Blanche Winnipeg, and Lethbridge’s Centric Festival. She also sings, synths, and writes adventurous pop music as one half of the duo Bicycle Face with guitarist Ava Glendinning.
City of Song is funded by the Winnipeg Arts Council with assistance from the Manitoba government, the Government of Canada, and Che Anne Loewen.
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