WATER FLOWS is an Indigenous-settler commission collaboration resulting in the creation of a new four-movement work for wind band and electronics (live or pre-recorded) by Manitoba composers Kerey Harper and Kenley Kristofferson.

Water Flows centers around Lake Winnipeg and the expansive watershed that flows life-giving water through nearly all corners of Manitoba. Kenley is a settler Canadian, and Kerey is a Gen Z Indigenous Canadian, and together they are using the learning and scope of traditional Indigenous teachings as a framework for this project, starting with the medicine wheel. Time is an important theme throughout this work, and referring back to the medicine wheel, each colour has a corresponding season, so Water Flows represents the flow of time, with each movement representing a season, and while the medicine wheel traditionally starts at Spring and ends in Winter, the composers decided to start with Summer and end in Spring.

The composers write "the medicine wheel teaches that Summer begins as a time of abundance, which the we believe represents the naiveté of Manitobans' relationship with the lake; primarily, that it has been there for thousands of years and many, many generations. Fall represents the maturing of knowledge, in which the lake begins to demonstrate signs of trauma that we, observers and citizens, and the land, experience every day because of our collective actions. Like the ground freezing from the surface into the soil, Winter represents the deepening of that knowledge, gravity of living with our choices, where we are doing the slow research and fully grasping what is happening to the lake, our part in it, and the seemingly insurmountable odds of us aiding its recovery to previous health levels. But Spring is a time of hope, rebirth, and renewal, which is how they are choosing to end the piece - with hope."

The MBA has commissioned this work in our 50th anniversary year to take some beginning steps to reconciliation through music by facilitating cross-cultural collaboration, learning, connection, and sharing. This piece of music will help facilitate the decentering of colonial structures inherent in instrumental music education while also encouraging Indigenization of instrumental music by centering Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing by facilitating relationship building with Indigenous community members, artists, Knowledge Keepers, and Elders.

The full four movement work will become available in the new year, and the MBA will also be developing and providing educational resources grounded in Indigenous teachings, Mamàhtawisiwin, and the Manitoba Framework for Learning that will help guide learning in both the context of your band room, and through cross-curricular connections with sciences, humanities, and other art disciplines.

We will continue to share more as we walk this path together and this project continues to develop and grow. Watch for more opportunities to learn, collaborate, engage, and share through music.