The WJO 2023 - 2024 Season

Trombone And Other Delights
featuring Audrey Ochoa 

Sunday, Oct 22, 2023
2:00 pm  
West End Cultural Centre (WECC)

The 2020 Western Canadian Music Award winner of Jazz Artist of the Year, Audrey joins the WJO for a can't miss evening of exceptionally elegant, highly original and powerfully lyrical jazz.

Kwassa Kwassa: Music and Dance of the Congo
with the Congolese band True Generation
Saturday, Nov 11, 2023
7:30 pm
Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain (CCFM) 
Music is the cultural bloodline running through the Congo and its influence stretches across the continent and beyond. It is at once a joyous dance, radiant happiness, poetry and prayer merged into a relentless groove guaranteed to get audiences out of their seats. Joining the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra is 8-piece Congolese band True Generation, led by the talented and charismatic Enee Nyelele, to showcase the fantastic music of the Congo.

Music of Our Time
featuring Sean Irvine
Thursday, Nov 30, 2023
7:30 pm
West End Culturel Centre (WECC)
​
Compositions by Sean Irvine, Tetyana Haraschuk and Andrew Balfour create an evening of vibrantly textured, excitingly emotional and culturally resonant music that will live with you long after the final note fades.
​

Elvis and the Grinch
special guests Quinn Greene, Helen White and Dave Greene

Thursday, Dec 14, 2023 
1:00 pm​ (shortened show; one-hour + Q&A for busing purposes) &  
7:30 pm
West End Cultural Centre (WECC)

A Blue Christmas turns green when the King of Rock & Roll and The Grinch share a double bill at this unique yuletide concert with vocalist Helen White and the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra. The King of Rock & Roll, the mean, green, X-mas abducting machine, and the WJO are coming at ya Winnipeg!

Women's Day Concert 3.0
featuring the WWJO - Winnipeg Women's Jazz Orchestra

Thursday, March 7, 2024
7:30 pm
​West End Cultural Centre (WECC)
​
The Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra has a mission toward equity, diversity, and inclusion. There are alarming statistics about the comparative lack of women in jazz, but the needle moves when space is provided to amplify voices. 
 
The Women's Day Concert features the W2JO (WJO's all-women version) performing a concert celebrating women in jazz. We are grateful to the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba for supporting four new works, written or arranged by women in Manitoba, that will be premiered at the concert! We will also feature Icelandic guest artist Sigurdís Sandra Tryggvadóttir. A Young Women's Jazz ensemble (led by Alyssa Alambra) will open the concert.
​
The WJO will hold its third annual Women-Led Jazz Symposium earlier in the day in coordination with the Women's Day Concert 3.0, The Women-Led Jazz Symposium offers an amazing lineup of presenters from whom participants can listen and learn. The sessions include: a keynote by three time Juno-nominated bassist, composer, producer, and educator Jodi Proznick; jazz instrumental and vocal creativity sessions (called 'You Can Do It!'), and a women in jazz history session (called 'Jazz Giants') led by some of Canada's finest women in jazz. The symposium will be an amazing opportunity for all attendees: students, educators, musicians, composers, and jazz enthusiasts! All are welcome!

To register for the Women-Led Jazz Symposium in the afternoon, go to https://app.arts-people.com/index.php?class=wjo.

Reeling In The Years: A Tribute to Steely Dan
Saturday, March 23rd, 2024 - 7:30 pm
Sunday, March 24th, 2024 - 2:00 pm
Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain (CCFM)

The distinctive 70's sound of Steely Dan is revived with the WJO and special guests Larry Roy and Leonard Shaw. This show will be a retrospective performing songs from albums: Can’t Buy a Thrill (1972), Countdown to Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic (1974), Katy Lied (1975), their best selling album Aja (1977), and Fagen’s first solo recording The Nightfly (1982). It will also include the single FM, from the movie of the same name.
The musical arrangements have been created or enhanced by Larry Roy, and will feature him on guitar. Leonard Shaw will be playing keyboards and singing lead vocals. Also performing with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra for these shows are Daniel Roy on drums, Donald Benedictson on bass, and Erin Propp and Karly Epp on vocals.'
Ellington' Great Paris Concert 
​    Thursday, April 18th 2024
    7:30 pm  
   West End Cultural Centre(WECC)
In the early 1960's an extended stay in Paris was particularly fruitful for Duke Ellington and his musicians. The iconic bandleader would score and star in a movie, write and record an album and perform a memorable concert at the L'Olympia. That concert was recorded and released nearly a decade later - titled The Great Paris Concert - and was truly one of the great live band performances of all time. Join the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra as we celebrate that magical evening with performances of Kinda Dukish, Rocking' in Rhythm and other classics from the set-list of Ellington's Great Paris Concert.

Fascinating Rhythm: The Music of Gershwin

Saturday, May 11, 2024
7:30 pm
Sunday, May 12, 2024
2:00 pm
Centre Culturel Franco-Manitobain (CCFM)

Harken back to a Golden Age of Music as we explore the exciting and eclectic career of one of the greatest jazz composers of all time. With Broadway standards, we got your rhythm, we got your music and who could ask for anything more.
The WJO's 2023/24 season continues our tradition of classic arrangements, new compositions, surprise guests, old friends, talented young instrumentalists and vocalists, and themes that we think will pique your interest!