A series of free public performances by professional musicians in the intimacy of the Green College Coach House. Look out for future lectures!
“Moving the Passions” – Tuesday, January 16, 2024 | 5 p.m.
Coach House, Green College, UBC and livestreamed
Artists: Majka Demcak, violin; Jessica Korotkin, cello; Christina Hutten, harpsichord
The 17th century saw an eruption of instrumental-only performance as advances in technique pushed the boundaries of musical possibility. Without a singer, how were the composers of the time communicating with music that had an absence of words? “Moving the Passions” will explore the Doctrine of the Passions/Affections by Johann Mattheson (1681-1764) and the theory of Four Humours with a performance of four different pieces by composers of the baroque era. Different musical devices and rhetorical tools were used to stir the emotions related to the Sanguine, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholic temperaments, making the listener feel the music moving or pulling them to a certain emotion. Some music resulted in balancing the humours, tending to matters of the heart or intellect, and relieving one of undesirable emotions. Other music dove deep into one particular affect and explored the range of emotions within.
PROGRAMME
Sonata Prima from Libra Secondo (Castello 1602-1631)
Sonata XV “Schezo D’Augelli Con il Cuccu” (J.J. Walther 1650-1717)
Andante in C major, BWV 1003 (J.S.Bach 1685-1750)
Sonata XI (Corelli 1653-1713)
I. Adagio
II. Allegro
III. Adagio
IV. Vivace
V. Allegro-Gavotta
Majka Demcak, violin
Compelled by a search for enchantment and magic in all the music that she plays, Majka Demcak performs works from the Baroque and Classical eras with zest and an improvisational freedom. She is a founding member of the baroque ensemble Gallo
Chamber Players, is a proud member/muse of the Alberta-based Mount Parnassus Foundation, and can be seen regularly in performance with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra. During her studies in The Juilliard School in New York, she performed on stages in Lincoln Center, including Alice Tully Hall, presented live-streamed concerts for Gotham Early Music Scene, and performed with The Little OPERA Theatre of New York. She was a co-founder of the classical period ensemble, Quartet Salonnieres, with whom she performed across the United States. Most recently, Majka Demcak founded the St. Augustine Series, a concert series based in the heart of Kitsilano, Vancouver, featuring local and international musicians specializing in historical performance.
Jessica Korotkin, cello
Montreal-based artist Jessica Korotkin is a passionate Baroque cellist, composer, and chamber musician known for her innovative and experimental approach to concert programming – often featuring original arrangements and compositions. She has performed and recorded with award-winning ensembles from Canada and the United States and has also appeared on the international stage at Bolivia’s XIII Festival Internacional de Música Renacentista y Barroca Americana as well as at Germany’s Internationale Bach Akademie Stuttgart.
Jessica combines her love for performing on gut strings with a keen enthusiasm for all genres and styles of music and is a founding member of the Ximenez Quartet, an ensemble dedicated to performing South American chamber music on period instruments. In 2019 she joined forces with The Broken Consort to create the baroque fusion album, Isle of Majesty. She recently cameoed in Canadian pop sensation Daniel Lavoie’s music video L’éternité, playing Baroque cello while dressed in period costume.
She holds degrees from the Peabody Institute and the Oberlin Conservatory. This year (2023) she graduated from McGill University with a Doctor of Music. While at McGill, Susie Napper advised her research-creation project of creating six new Bach-inspired cello suites. You can read more about this project in Early Music America’s online feature, Making a Parody of Bach, No Kidding. She was also one of EMV’s 2023 Next Generation Artists.
Christina Hutten, harpsichord
Organist and harpsichordist Christina Hutten has presented recitals in Canada, the United States, and Europe. She performs regularly with Pacific Baroque Orchestra and has appeared as concerto soloist with the Okanagan Symphony, the Vancouver Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, and the Arizona State University Chamber Orchestra. Christina is also an enthusiastic teacher. She coaches and coordinates the early music ensembles at the University of British Columbia and has given masterclasses and workshops at institutions including the Victoria Baroque Summer Program, Brandon University, the University of Manitoba, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada’s National Music Centre in Calgary, and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. Funded by a generous grant from the Canada Council for the Arts, she pursued historical keyboard studies in Europe with Francesco Cera, François Espinasse, and Bernard Winsemius. She participated in the Britten-Pears Programme, led by Andreas Scholl and Tamar Halperin, for which she was awarded the Loewen Prize. Christina obtained a master’s degree in Organ Performance from Arizona State University under the direction of Kimberly Marshall and an Advanced Certificate in Harpsichord Performance from the University of Toronto, where she studied with Charlotte Nediger. She is now a doctoral candidate in musicology at UBC.
“250 Years of Hindustani Music” – Wednesday, April 24, 2024 | 5 p.m.
Coach House, Green College, UBC and livestreamed
Artist: Srivani Jade, Indian classical vocalist, composer, educator
The music of North India has evolved over a thousand years, amidst several socio-political shifts and cultural influences from all around the subcontinent. The shruti (intonation) and laya (tempi) originated in the Vedic Chants (1500-1000 BCE). Dhrupad centered around the song form, and is one of the earliest ‘classical music’ forms still performed today. In the 18th century, Khayal came about as a response to Dhrupad’s austere form, and allowed varied themes – from sacred to secular, romantic, erotic, even patriotic – and provided abundant opportunity for creative self expression.
PROGRAMME
Srivani will present a Dhrupad by Mian Tansen (1500-1589 AD) in Raga Brindavani Sarang, Khayals by Sadarang (1670-1748 AD), and verses by Amir Khusrau (1253-1325 AD) and Kabir (1398-1518). She will narrate, story-tell, sing (to the accompaniment of tanpura and tabla) and is happy to take questions at the end, to amplify and elucidate specific points of interest.
Srivani Jade, Indian classical vocalist, composer, educator
Indian Classical vocalist, composer, and educator Srivani Jade identifies deeply with the Khayal, Thumri and Bhakti traditions of North India. She has performed worldwide, and has eight albums, film and musical scores to her credit. She is a Visiting Artist with University of Washington, and has served numerous teaching and creative residencies in the United States and India. She has received grant support from 4Culture, Center for WA Cultural Traditions and the NEA, to create, record and perform new work. She has served on boards and panels of various arts non-profits in WA State for over two decades, and is currently the President of Ragamala (est. 1981, www.ragamala.org). More at www.srivanijade.com.
Working with Green College
For over seven years, EMV has offered an annual series of free lecture demonstrations at Green College at UBC, related to our season programming and designed to inform and grow our audience base. These events have been increasingly well-attended and have stimulated a dialogue between the organization and the local community regarding the wider context of our activities in the community. Early Music Vancouver has had a strong relationship with Green College since 1993, offering courses throughout the years and summers.
Green College is a graduate residential college at the University of British Columbia and also a society of scholars and intellectuals stretching around the world, including hundreds of former residents, associated faculty, and distinguished visitors. The College’s reach extends far beyond its stunning location on the edge of the UBC campus in Vancouver, Canada, where it is nestled on a forested cliff overlooking the ocean and mountains. It is an ever-expanding community, ready to welcome those with a passion for the exchange of ideas and an interest in the cultivation of academic and creative connections. This founding ideal is reflected in the motto of the College’s coat of arms: “Ideas and Friendship.”
The College was founded in 1993, thanks to a gift from Dr. Cecil H. Green. The College has formal ties with Green Templeton College, a sister institution at Oxford University also endowed by Cecil Green, and with Massey College at the University of Toronto. It was established as a centre for advanced interdisciplinary scholarship, with a mandate, reflecting Cecil Green’s vision, to bring together disciplines across the University through non-curricular programs and collaborations, while also opening the University to the wider local community.
The College’s commitment to exceeding the ordinary limits of academic discourse and to providing a venue hospitable to constructive thinking on all fronts is captured in the College’s tagline “Creating New Horizons.” Special visitors are invited each academic year to enrich conversations at the College and on the UBC campus, both through regular series of interdisciplinary talks and the prestigious Cecil H. and Ida Green Visiting Professorship program. The College also hosts a Writer-in-Residence program. With rare exceptions, the College’s academic programming is open to the whole UBC community and the general public. The College welcomes those from both within and outside the University to join residents and members for dinner in the Great Hall.
Mark Vessey | Principal of Green College
Dr. Mark Vessey has been the Principal of Green College at UBC since July 1, 2008. Prior to his appointment as Principal, Dr. Vessey had a long history with the College, having previously served as Acting Principal in 1998/99, and as a Faculty Member of Green College since 1994. Dr. Vessey obtained his B.A. in English at the University of Cambridge and his D.Phil. in Ancient History at the University of Oxford. He came to UBC in 1989 as an I. W. Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of English, and was appointed to a faculty position in that department in 1990. He held a Visiting Fellowship at All Souls’ College, Oxford, in 1997 and was Visiting Professor of Augustinian Studies at Villanova University in 2000. In 2001 he was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Literature / Christianity and Culture (renewed in 2005), and in 2005 won a Senior Killam Research Prize at UBC. Before taking up his position as Principal of the College, he served as Associate Head and Chair of the Graduate Program in English. He is a member of the UBC Senate, representing the Faculty of Arts, for the triennium 2008-11.
Dr. Vessey’s research focuses on processes of text-, canon- and discipline-formation in the Latin Christian culture of the later Roman Empire (4th to 6th centuries) and their role in the shaping of longer-term discourses and institutions of “western civilization,” particularly those associated with “literature.” He has published in the fields of Roman history, patristics, medieval studies, Latin and English Renaissance literatures, literary theory, and the history of the book. He is married to Dr. Maya Yazigi and they have a daughter, Leila.