Join Aventa as we open our 2026 Concert Season with Irish composer Donnacha Dennehy’s stunning work for ensemble, Land of Winter, alongside the North American premiere of Anders Nordentoft’s Stream.
Sunday, February 8, 2026 7:30pm
Land of Winter
Phillip T. Young Recital Hall
(UVic School of Music, MacLaurin Building)
Admission: PWYC
Pre-concert talk 7:15pm
Aventa Ensemble
Bill Linwood, conductor
Anders Nordentoft, Stream
Donnacha Dennehy, Land of Winter
Dennehy says of his composition, “Land of Winter starts in December and culminates at the end of November, ready to begin all over again in winter, as it were. (In Ireland, we used to consider November the start of winter, as it was according to the old Gaelic calendar, but then it shifted to December to be more in line with Europe, so there is always confusion about the exact demarcation of the seasons). One thing is for sure: in winter, the contradiction of light is unmistakeable, regardless of how you mark its boundaries. It can often feel as if the dark is swallowing up everything in that season…It is the varying quality of light that truly demarcates the seasons, from the shorter days of grey or piercing light in the winter to the warmer but mercurial light of summer days that at solstice stretch almost to midnight. I like this play between light and time, and it is the major inspiration behind the piece.”
Land of Winter is divided into twelve sections, which are considered as months. The piece starts in December, ending in November. From the cold, crystalline and translucent month of December through more hopeful moods of spring and joyful summer, the final month of November brings us full cycle back to barren atmosphere of December. Underneath the surface JS Bach’s Advent chorale Wie soll ich dich empfangen serves as a connecting thread throughout the work, gradually revealed only in the final month of November.
Called “thrilling” by the Guardian, and “arrestingly beautiful” by the New Yorker, Donnacha Dennehy’s music has been featured in festivals and venues such as Carnegie Hall, Barbican, MusikFest Berlin, Muziekgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Royal Opera House, BAM, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Kennedy Center, ISCM World Music Days, Musica Viva, and the Bang On A Can, Edinburgh International, Tanglewood, Holland, Huddersfield Contemporary Music, Dublin Theatre, Ultima, Saarbrucken, and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals.
The work Stream is in the composer’s own words ‘like magic from the light summer nights’ – a conversation for chamber ensemble whose velocity is determined by its own undercurrents of unease. The inspiration from the light of summer nights can be heard when the music, like a stream of water, moves through different landscapes and moods with a particular sense of dusk.
Anders was awarded the Carl Nielsen Prize in 1997, the Edition Wilhelm Hansen Award in 2002 and the Carl Prize in 2021. From 2020-22 he was composer-in-residence at Denmark’s foremost ensemble for new music, Athelas Sinfonietta. Aventa is delighted to again revisit the music of this remarkable composer, whom we first encountered in 2006 with the North American premiere of his ground-breaking opera, On This Planet.