'He loved the audiences': Longtime Regina Symphony Orchestra conductor Victor Sawa dies
CBC
Victor Sawa, the longtime conductor of the Regina Symphony Orchestra, celebrated for his dedication to wiping the image of elitism from classical music, has died.
He died peacefully at his home on Wednesday, the orchestra on social media, following a long bout with illness.
Sawa was with the orchestra from 1997 to 2016 and was "a true Regina icon," the orchestra said.
"If I have a pet peeve, it's snobbery," Sawa told CBC in 2016, at the end of his tenure as the orchestra's maestro.
To Christian Robinson, the orchestra's concert master, Sawa was first a mentor and then a friend. He knew Sawa him for more than 20 years. When he heard that quote, he laughed.
"That totally captures his spirit in a lot of ways," Robinson said — that classical music isn't "some extremely abstract highfalutin thing, that if you haven't devoted your entire life to studying, it's not for you."
"He really, really did want everyone to experience the love and excitement that he had, himself, for this music and for this art form."
Sawa last conducted in January 2023 with the Golden Age of Hollywood concert. At the time, he told the host of CBC's Saskatchewan Weekend, Shauna Powers, it was great to return to the stage.
He spoke about music as excitedly as a child discovering something new for the first time.
"Your enthusiasm has brought your whole family along on this musical journey, hasn't it?" Powers asked.
"Yeah, it's great. Even the kids, everybody. So, I hope to tonight, too," he said.
He was also known for introducing Symphony Under the Sky, Mozart in the Meadow and the annual RSO Goes to the Oscars Pops concert.
Elizabeth Raum played principal oboe in the orchstra when Sawa was the conductor and recalled the first Mozart in the Meadow as a great success.
She also remembers his on-stage charisma.
Aggressive patients and lack of security are making nurses feel unsafe in a rural Western Manitoba emergency union, says the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Saskatoon resident Delynne Bortis knew her commute to work Tuesday morning would be particularly difficult.
WARNING: This story contains details of abuse and intimate partner violence:
The amount of money it takes for people to earn a living wage has increased across the province, according to a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
The new owner of Ontario steelmaker Stelco says his company "will not disappoint the people of Hamilton and Nanticoke," where the business's major facilities are based.
A Winnipegger is warning others about an intricate scam she says she almost fell for.
Fort William First Nation is opposing a planned redevelopment of the Ontario Power Generation's (OPG) 117 year old Kakabeka Falls Generating Station, which is located in their traditional territory.
A building that sits at the corner of Sussex Street and Brunswick Avenue has had many lives over the last century — being a church, a school and offices. Now it's set to become housing, at a time when the city sorely needs it.
A Waterloo, Ont., elementary school principal will be sentenced in the new year after pleading guilty to child sexual exploitation charges following a joint investigation that involved the London, Toronto and Waterloo police services.
Students at UPEI have let their student union know what they want from the province this fiscal year, and those priorities are reflected in a 2024-2025 advocacy document brought to the legislature on Wednesday.
Larger communities in the N.W.T. will soon see a boost in their territorial funding to maintain infrastructure and deliver services — like water and waste management — but the increase still falls short of what communities need.