Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra seeks new leader

Winnipeg Free Press

a day ago

The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra will soon have a new leader.
Angela Birdsell, the WSO's executive director, is not renewing her contract that ends in 2026 and will help the WSO search for her successor.
A changing of the guard is underway across much of Winnipeg's arts and cultural sector.
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files
Angela Birdsell will be leaving her role as executive director of the WSO but will continue to work on the redevelopment of Pantages Theatre.
In the past few months, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, Centre culturel franco-manitobain, Manitoba Opera and the Aviation Museum have all announced a change in their executive directors or staff leadership.
'I'm not a young woman. I'm towards the end of my career and I think it's a great time to attract brilliant young talent to this incredibly brilliant organization,' says Birdsell. 'But let me talk about the exhaustion in the (arts and cultural) field. The jobs are too damn hard.'
According to her, the pandemic was the 'tipping point' for many organizations.
Significant struggles continue in the aftermath — fewer patrons, higher costs and restricted funding, all of which are documented across Canada's performing arts sector.
In 2023, Birdsell was one of 20 signatories — including leadership from the Manitoba Opera, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Royal Winnipeg Ballet— who sent a joint letter to Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez requesting additional federal funding.
The WSO had posted a deficit in a year of notable challenges for the sector including the bankruptcy of the Kitchener–Waterloo Symphony.
'We are now in the year we were so terrified about two to three years ago and here we are. We're still eating and sleeping and have a roof over our heads,' says Birdsell.
'It's a great time to attract brilliant young talent to this incredibly brilliant organization… But let me talk about the exhaustion in the (arts and cultural) field. The jobs are too damn hard.'–Angela Birdsell
'I find it profoundly annoying that the WSO has, for a number of decades, been viewed as the poor cousin of the arts in this city. If you lay bare the facts, we are a very high performing organization. The WSO punches above its weight and it's such a great orchestra.'
Birdsell is someone who's long been enmeshed in classical music's economics.
Born in Winnipeg, she earned a Master of Music from Université Laval and an MBA from the University of Ottawa and, beginning in the late 1990s, worked for the Canada Council for the Arts and Saskatchewan Arts Board during a period of marked growth for Canadian arts.
As well as operating her own consultancy firm, she later served as a senior cultural policy advisor in Australia and worked as director of orchestra and opera at the Australia Council for the Arts.
'Australia's got two thirds of our GDP, two thirds of our population, two thirds of our land, but it's similar in so many ways, yet the level of investment in the large performing arts institutions is exponentially higher than in our country,' she says.
'If I'm coming close to the end of my career, I want to go down as saying that the benchmark in this country has never been high enough. And every time the funding agencies get an increase, our organizations go from poverty to semi-poverty — and then inflation kicks in and we go back down to poverty.'
Ruth Bonneville / Free Press files
One of Birdsell's major focuses at the WSO has been finding a new home for the orchestra to offset what she sees as an unfair arrangement with the provincial government.
Starting in 1968, the WSO has rented rehearsal, box office and performance space at Centennial Concert Hall, owned by the Manitoba Centennial Centre Corporation (MCCC), a Crown corporation that manages the art district that includes the concert hall, Manitoba Museum and Planetarium, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre and Artspace Inc.
In June, the WSO announced it was actively fundraising with the Performing Arts Consortium (PAC) to revive the shuttered Pantages Theatre next door. It plans to present much of its annual 70-plus concert season in the theatre as the long-term managing tenant with PAC continuing to own the space.
'In effect, we are (currently) subsidizing the organizations that get their space free of charge from the MCCC,' Birdsell said at the time.
Birdsell says she has 'every intention' of helping the WSO through the leadership transition and hopes to continue supporting the organization through their Pantages project and capital campaign.
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'The WSO is a truly spectacular ensemble with great leadership and amazing players that take just such profound pride in their artistry. The hall is part of the instrument and that's what's missing — a hall that reflects who we are.'
As she readies to exit the WSO — which, under her administrative baton, has just completed the first year of its new four-year labour agreement with their musicians, changed office spaces and taken on Karl Stobbe as its new concertmaster — the organization's board thanked her for her work.
'The board of directors is extremely grateful for the leadership of Angela Birdsell through what has been an extremely challenging few years for the WSO,' said board chair and PAC director Curt Vossen in the press announcement about Birdsell's departure.
'She has worked with the board and stakeholders to map out a strategy that will ensure stability, resiliency, flexibility and artistic excellence for the orchestra in the long-term.'
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Conrad SweatmanReporter
Conrad Sweatman is an arts reporter and feature writer. Before joining the Free Press full-time in 2024, he worked in the U.K. and Canadian cultural sectors, freelanced for outlets including The Walrus, VICE and Prairie Fire. Read more about Conrad.
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