Indigo Trio Makes Classical Music Accessible to Westman

In a first for Hazel M Kellington School since the start of the pandemic, live music is once again on the agenda. The elementary school hosted Indigo Trio for a pair of student performances at the end of the 2021-22 school year. For Indigo Trio, the string trio that travelled from Winnipeg to do a microtour of four Westman communities, this is some of the first live music they’ve been able to perform in quite some time as well.

The tour itself was part of management organisation Prairie Debut and the Westman region’s efforts to start integrating the arts as an essential part of community life. That relationship began last year and has begun seeing results in 2022. It’s a big part of the reason that the musicians didn’t just play in the schools but also out in unconventional venues in the towns, such as a pop-up concert Brews Brothers Bistro in Neepawa. It’s also a big reason why the group was enthusiastic about the opportunity to talk to us and share their music and performance philosophy with an even wider audience in the community.

Chamber music is meant for smaller spaces, says Alyssa Ramsay, cellist for the trio. Although they can work in larger venues, the intimacy of smaller audiences works with the type of music that they’re sharing. The trio was formed with the intention of travelling into rural areas, particularly in their home province of Manitoba, and making their music more available and accessible to a broader audience.

When asked about the difference between rural and urban audiences, the trio indicates that despite people’s preconceptions, they haven’t experienced a huge difference in the interest or sophistication of the audiences, just in their ability to access live chamber music. Their approach to their music is to make it, as they put it, as unpretentious as possible, mixing folk, classical, and popular music to keep audiences engaged and help them make connections between the past, present and future of chamber music.

School performances carry extra meaning for the musicians because they would have liked to have experienced more of that type of engagement when they were younger. Violiist John Sellick adds, “We love seeing kids react to what they’re hearing and not sitting still and being as quiet as possible.”

HMK principal Allen Hanke says the school performance, and performances like it, are not just a highlight for the kids but also provide an invaluable educational opportunity. He highlights one moment when the students were invited to sing along and the whole gymnasium burst out with the recent Disney song “We Don’t Talk About Bruno”. The combination of popular and classical music, all played in front of them by the same musicians on the same instruments, created an instant connection that really can’t be duplicated outside of live performances.

Music featured at the pop-up includes:

Sekstur from Vendsyssel - The Peat Dance (traditional Nordic folk tune)
J.S. Bach - Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) - Aria