CONDUCTOR ANNE MANSON has served as Music Director of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra since 2008. Manson’s strong commitment to contemporary music has led to numerous commissions and recordings with the MCO. Philip Glass has twice figured into these initiatives, with the MCO recording Philip Glass’s Symphony No. 3 in 2013 and co-commissioning, as well as touring, his Piano Concerto No. 3 in collaboration with pianist Simone Dinnerstein (2018/19). In recent years, Anne Manson has conducted the MCO on three decorated CDs centred on new commissioned works. They include Mirage? Concertos for Percussion (2017) which features GRAMMY-winning percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie and was nominated for a Western Canadian Music award; Troubadour & the Nightingale (2012) which features soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and was nominated for both a JUNO and a Western Canadian Music award; and most recently, in June 2019, a CD recording of Michael Oesterle’s Cello Concerto, featuring cellist Ariel Barnes. Anne Manson has also recorded with the Portland Opera and numerous other international orchestras.

Since 2006 Manson has conducted the MCO on multiple US and Canadian tours including to Carnegie Hall, Jordan Hall (Boston), the Chan Centre (Vancouver), and both Roy Thomson Hall and the Glenn Gould Studio (Toronto), among many others. Throughout her tenure with MCO, she has worked with many of the world’s top soloists including Marc-André Hamelin, Jan Lisiecki, Inon Barnatan, James Ehnes, Measha Brueggergosman, Isabel Bayrakdarian, Tracy Dahl, and Andriana Chuchman.

As a guest conductor, Manson has performed with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston and Indianapolis Symphonies, the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bournemouth Sinfonietta, Orquesta de Extremadura, BBC Proms, and Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and has conducted regularly with many orchestras in Spain. 

As a renowned conductor of opera, Manson has led at houses around the globe: San Francisco Opera (Così fan tutte), New York City Opera (Barber’s Vanessa), Grand Théâtre de Genève (Floyd’s Susanna), Royal Opera Stockholm (Donizetti’s Viva la mamma), Spoleto Festival (Janáček’s Kat’a Kabanova), Minnesota Opera (US premiere of Jonathan Dove’s The Adventures of Pinnochio, Donizetti’s Maria Stuarda, Puccini’s Tosca, Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel), Portland Opera (Phillip Glass’s Orphée and Galileo Galilei—released on CD in 2013, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly), Virginia Opera (Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles, Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers). At the Washington National Opera, Manson has conducted numerous works including Douglas Pew’s Penny, Barber’s Vanessa, Conrad Susa’s Dangerous Liaisons, and Scott Wheeler’s Democracy, and has served as a mentor for the American Opera Initiative commissions. She received Canada’s DORA Award for outstanding musical direction for her work with the Canadian Opera Company on Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the Juilliard School, she has conducted Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen and Kat’a Kabanova, Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, Ned Rorem’s Our Town, and the North American premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Kommilitonen!.