Keyword: Neil Weisensel
CMU faculty, students, alumnus thrilled to participate in Indigenous opera premiere
Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North premiered last month in a rush of vibrant colour, rich story, and lively music and dance. The production, performed by Manitoba Opera, sold out each of its three performances at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg on November 18, 22, and 24.
New Indigenous opera is a story of good medicine
This fall, Manitoba Opera will be performing the world premiere of Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North, the first full-scale Indigenous-led opera presented on a Canadian mainstage. It celebrates Métis women, languages, music, and culture, with libretto written by Métis poet and scholar Dr. Suzanne Steele and music composed by Métis fiddler Alex Kusturok and CMU faculty Neil Weisensel.
Innovative Indigenous language database developed and launched by Li Keur team and CMU
The team behind Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North launched an innovative Indigenous language database this spring.
Li Keur is a new dramatic musical work co-created by Métis poet and scholar Dr. Suzanne Steele, who wrote the libretto, and CMU Adjunct Professor of Music Neil Weisensel, who composed the music alongside Métis fiddler Alex Kusturok. It is a reimagining of Louis Riel's "missing" years from 1870–72 and the strong women that surrounded him.
Student assistantship with Li Keur project yields golden opportunities for two PACTS majors
Peacebuilding students Bryna Link and Hannah Connelly describe joys and challenges of their work on the Li Keur Podcast, interviewing creators and collaborators from the eponymous new opera.
Bryna Link and Hannah Connelly joined the production team of celebrated new opera Li Keur: Riel's Heart of the North as student assistants back in July. What began as a summer position—and for Connelly, a practicum placement ahead of graduation next Spring—has developed into a long-term student assistantship that will take both women all the way through Summer 2021.
Production Update: Dr. Suzanne Steele and Neil Weisensel’s Li Keur, Riel’s Heart of the North
Two CMU Peace and Conflict Transformation Studies (PACTS) students will assist completion of Indigenous Language pronunciation database essential to new opera.
Co-creators of the new opera Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North—Dr. Suzanne Steele, Métis poet and scholar, composer Neil Weisensel, Adjunct Professor of Music at CMU—have hired two CMU students to learn and assist on the opera's production team as they move towards the show's first staged production in 2021. Senior PACTS students Bryna Link of Peguis First Nation and Hannah Connelly of Saskatchewan will take on the roles of Communications Assistant and Production Assistant respectively.
CMU’s Anna Schwartz wins Canada Music Week’s Student Composer Competition for Manitoba
Anna Schwartz is drinking in the opportunities CMU's vibrant musical community provides. Following her provincial win last month, her original work "Prairie Sunrise" now goes to compete at the national level.
CMU's Anna Schwartz has taken first place at the provincial level of this year's Canada Music Week Student Composer Competition, hosted by the Manitoba Registered Music Teachers' Association. Schwartz's original composition for orchestra, "Prairie Sunrise," earned $200 in prize money and will now go on to be entered in the nation-wide summer competition. Schwartz also entered an original piece for choir that garnered honourable mention.
CMU’s Neil Weisensel receives $50,000 SSHRCC grant for continued development of Louis Riel opera
Funding will help ensure every possible measure is taken to make Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North a reconciliation project, curtain to curtain.
Grant writing is notoriously difficult, time-consuming, meticulous work, yielding unpredictable return on investment. Yet it remains an essential and unavoidable demand of research and creative careers. For Neil Weisensel, adjunct Professor of Music at CMU and composer of Li Keur, Riel's Heart of the North which débuted last year, the effort is paying off. He recently received $50,000 in the form of a federal grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) for further work on a thriving production.
The heart of the matter
War-zone reporter and novelist turned climate researcher J. M. Ledgard recently told the New Yorker that, faced with a mess like the one humanity has made, "the only possible thing to do, is to go in an imaginative direction. Imagination at scale is our only recourse."1
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