It offers an annual subscription series at Westminster United Church, which regularly features Canada's leading soloists, such as James Ehnes and Measha Brueggergosman, and Marc-André Hamelin.

Other core MCO activities include recording, touring, and engaging extensive outreach in remote communities in northern Manitoba.

The MCO toured southern Italy in August 1999, and British Columbia twice: in the spring of 2003, and in the autumn of 2009 together with the celebrated percussion soloist, Dame Evelyn Glennie.

In the autumn of 2008, the orchestra accompanied the Armenian/Canadian soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian on a tour to San Francisco and Orange County (California), Vancouver, Toronto, Boston (Massachusetts), and New York, which culminated in a concert at Carnegie Hall.

The bilingual work is based on new music by Michael Oesterle and a script by Rhéal Cenerini, and explores the relationship between a French coureur de bois, a First Nations woman, and Nanabush, the Anishinaabe trickster figure.

Among the many soloists and ensembles who have appeared with the MCO, or under its auspices, are James Ehnes, Jan Lisiecki, Tracy Dahl, Measha Brueggergosman, Andriana Chuchman, Dame Evelyn Glennie, Marc-André Hamelin, Janina Fialkowska, Angela Hewitt, André Laplante, Liona Boyd, Jon Kimura Parker, Emma Kirkby, Zara Nelsova, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Winnipeg Singers, the university (of Manitoba) Singers, the Winnipeg Philharmonic Choir, and local high school choirs.

Among the composers the MCO has commissioned are Nahre Sol, Larry Strachan, Cris Derksen, Kevin Lau, Christos Hatzis, Jim Hiscott, Serouj Kradjian, Harry Freedman, Jocelyn Morlock, Michael Matthews, Luke Nickel, Heidi Ouellette, John Estacio, Randolph Peters, Glenn Buhr, Andrew Balfour, Stewart Goodyear, Michael Oesterle, Jeffrey Ryan, Dorothy Chang, Heather Schmidt, Karen Sunabacka, Sid Robinovitch, Alan Heard, Alexina Louie, Robert Turner, Gary Kulesha, Stephen Chatman, Donald Steven, Mark Hand, Norman Sherman, and Chan Ka Nin, and Malcolm Forsyth, who called the MCO's premiere of his cantata Evangeline "one of the supreme moments of my life as an artist, and one I am sure will continue to be so for the rest of my life."

Under founding music director and conductor, Ruben Gurevich, the orchestra established its ongoing practice of presenting many contemporary works, including over 100 Winnipeg premieres in its first five seasons.