Nosferatu

Naomi Woo, conductor
Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Original title: NOSFERATU – EINE SYMPHONIE DES GRAUENS (93 minutes)
Directed by: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Music: original score by Hans Erdmann

Nosferatu is a work that has been quoted and copied many times in cinematic history – nevertheless it is, and remains, the classic thriller. Based on themes from Bram Stoker‘s novel Dracula, Henrik Galeen wrote the script for Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau‘s sombre film.

Employing a German expressionist cinematographic style, Murnau‘s direction of the film‘s mystery and horror is sublime. He shows his action in slow motion, blows up his shadow and toys with the element of fears.

Nosferatu tells the tale of Thomas Hutter, a real estate agent, who is sent to the Carpathians to sell a house to a Count. Once he nears Count Orlok’s castle, he realizes that this is not a regular business trip. He discovers his host’s true nature, when Hutter injures himself with a knife. The uncanny Count plunges himself on him and Hutter awakes the next morning with two inexplicable marks on his neck. Hutter’s life is spared when the Count loses interest in him. Orlok sees a picture of his visitor’s wife, and swiftly makes his way to Hutter’s residence.

Orlock tries to win over the beautiful naïve woman through his powers. She offers herself, as if under hypnosis, and Nosferatu forgets time. Taken by surprise, the brightness of the rising sun makes him disintegrate into smoke. (Reclaim movie classics)

Naomi Woo, conductor

“[Naomi] is a talented artist, versatile musician, and natural communicator”
– Daniel Raiskin, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

Naomi Woo is a prominent young Canadian conductor and pianist, recognized by CBC Radio, ARTV, and Flare magazine as a rising star on the Canadian classical music scene. The current Assistant Conductor and Community Ambassador of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Naomi is frequently in demand as a guest conductor across Canada. In 2021-2022, she will make debut appearances with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Kitchener-Waterloo

Symphony Orchestra, Regina Symphony Orchestra and Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, and will also conduct rehearsals of the Orchestre Métropolitain, having been chosen by Yannick Nezet-Seguin for the orchestra’s inaugural conducting academy.

As an opera conductor and music director, Naomi is remarkable for her collaborative approach and natural command for storytelling and language. She has conducted more than a dozen operas with students and young professionals in US and the UK, and collaboratively created new, genre-bending operatic works with Sasha Amaya and Catherine Kontz (A Certain Sense of Order, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2017), Sophie Seita (Beethoven Was a Lesbian, Tête à Tête Opera Festival 2020), and Alex Ho/Julia Cheng (dramaturg for UNTOLD, Snape Maltings 2019). In 2018, she was one of only 12 conductors accepted onto the first training course for women conductors at the National Opera Studio, hosted by the Royal Philharmonic Society and the Royal Opera House. Upcoming opera projects include Jake Heggie’s Three Decembers (Little Opera Company), Du Yan’s Pulitzer-prize winning Angel’s Bone (Re:Opera), and Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s The Night Falls (BalletCollective / American Opera Projects).

Her passion for new work and artistic creation has also led to trainings and residencies at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse, the International Ensemble Modern Academy at Klangspuren Schwaz, Nida Art Colony (Vilnius Academy of the Arts), the Cortona Sessions for New Music, and more. As a pianist, she has been a prizewinner at the Eckhardt-Grammatté Competition for Canadian and Contemporary Music and winner of the Hélène Roberge Prize for Canadian Music. She is an artist with Tangram, an ensemble devoted to celebrating the vitality of Chinese cultures, and creating new music by transnational Chinese creators.

Also passionate about education, Naomi is Music Director of the University of Manitoba Symphony Orchestra and has made guest conducting and lecturing appearances at Oberlin Conservatory and the Royal Academy of Music. As the first-ever music director of Sistema Winnipeg, a programme that uses music as a tool for social change, a commitment to using music to imaginatively transform the world runs through all of her work including her PhD thesis from the University of Cambridge, titled The Practicality of the Impossible.

​Alongside her work as a conductor, Naomi maintains an active career as a pianist. She has appeared twice with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra as a soloist, in Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos and conducting from the keyboard in Marianna Martinez’ Keyboard Concerto in A Major.

Naomi holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar. She has also studied mathematics, philosophy, and music at Yale College, the Yale School of Music, and Université de Montréal. Her formative training before university took place at the Vancouver Academy of Music. She acknowledges generous support over the years from the Manitoba Arts Council, Canada Council for the Arts, Help Musicians UK, and the BC Arts Council.

MUSICIAN NUCLEUS

FIRST VIOLINS
Gwen Hoebig, Concertmaster
The Sophie-Carmen Eckhardt-Gramatté Memorial Chair, endowed by the Eckhardt-Gramatté Foundation
Karl Stobbe, Associate Concertmaster
Jeff Dyrda, Assistant Concertmaster
Mona Coarda
Tara Fensom
Hong Tian Jia
Mary Lawton
Sonia Lazar
Julie Savard
Jun Shao

SECOND VIOLINS
Chris Anstey, Principal
Elation Pauls, Assistant Principal
Karen Bauch
Kristina Bauch,
Elizabeth Dyer
Bokyung Hwang*
Rodica Jeffrey
Momoko Matsumura **
Susan McCallum
Takayo Noguchi
Jane Radomski

VIOLAS
Elise Lavallée, Acting Principal
Marie-Elyse Badeau, Acting Assistant Principal
Laszlo Baroczi
Richard Bauch

Greg Hay
Dmytro Kreshchenskyi **
Michael Scholz

CELLOS
Yuri Hooker, Principal
Emma Quackenbush, Acting Assistant Principal
Grace An **
Arlene Dahl
Samuel Nadurak **
Alyssa Ramsay
Sean Taubner

BASSES
Meredith Johnson, Principal
Andrew Goodlett, Assistant Principal
James McMillan
Daniel Perry
Eric Timperman

FLUTES
Jan Kocman, Principal
Supported by Gordon & Audrey Fogg
Alex Conway

PICCOLO
Alex Conway, Principal

OBOES
Beverly Wang, Principal
Robin MacMillan

ENGLISH HORN
Robin MacMillan, Principal

CLARINETS
Micah Heilbrunn, Principal
Taylor Eiffert
The James Thomson Memorial Chair
Sharon Atkinson (guest)

BASSOONS
Kathryn Brooks, Principal *
Mark Kreshchenskyi, Acting Principal **
Elizabeth Mee **

HORNS
Patricia Evans, Principal
Ken MacDonald, Associate Principal
The Hilda Schelberger Memorial Chair
Aiden Kleer
Caroline Oberheu
Michiko Singh

TRUMPETS
Chris Fensom, Principal
Paul Jeffrey, Associate Principal
Isaac Pulford
The Patty Kirk Memorial Chair

TROMBONES
Steven Dyer, Principal
The Stuart Bremner Memorial Chair
Keith Dyrda

BASS TROMBONE
Isabelle Lavoie, Acting Principal **

PERCUSSION
Andrew Johnson, Principal
Brendan Thompson (guest)

HARP
Richard Turner, Principal
Endowed by W.H. & S.E. Loewen

KEYBOARD
Darryl Friesen (guest)

PERSONNEL MANAGER
Greg Hay

MUSIC LIBRARIAN
Michaela Kleer

ASSISTANT LIBRARIAN
Aiden Kleer

* On Leave
** 1 year appointment

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