Glenn Buhr’s works have been performed by chamber ensembles, soloists and orchestras all over the world. He became well known in Canada as co-founder with Bramwell Tovey of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Festival. He was composer-in-residence with the WSO and curator of the New Music Festival from 1990 to 1996. He is an associate professor on the Faculty of Music at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

Ritchot Mass: “The first music that I composed while living as a refugee during the 1997 flood was the Kyrie of this mass. Nursing the grief of losing our home to the flood, I could not help being moved by the opening words of the mass: Lord, have mercy on us… I felt that this was a universal prayer for every human being who has ever experienced the suffering of loss. The work is dedicated to those who lost their homes to this disaster and it is named after my community, the Rural Municipality of Ritchot, an area that was brutally devastated by the flood.”

String Quartet no. 2: “This is a set of variations on Charles Mingus’ blues composition Goodbye Pork Pie Hat. In the midst of the process there is a gradual stylistic transformation from the frenzy of the abstract opening section and the melodic expressionism of the middle variations to the quiet setting of the blues theme at the end. The opening section is often harsh, but very bright in tone. Then as a more familiar melodic style emerges, the mysteriously tender sensation of sadness that is often associated with the blues takes over.”

3 Songs (1997)

i. tess

ii. I’m in love with sleep

iii. learning to fall

String Quartet no. 1 *(1992)

i. Preludio

ii. Organum

iii. Alla marci

iv. Srngara

v. Mélodie

Ritchot Mass (1997)

i. Kyrie

ii. Gloria

iii. Sanctus

iv. Agnus Dei