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Home  >  Tickets  >  Pacific Baroque Orchestra Concerts

Pacific Baroque Orchestra Concerts

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra (PBO) is recognized as one of Canada’s most exciting and innovative ensembles performing “early music for modern ears”. PBO brings the music of the past up to date by performing with cutting edge style and enthusiasm. Formed in 1990, the orchestra quickly established itself as a force in Vancouver’s burgeoning music scene with the ongoing support of Early Music Vancouver.

In 2009 PBO welcomed Alexander Weimann as Artistic Director. His imaginative programming and expert leadership have drawn in many new concertgoers, and his creativity and engaging musicianship have carved out a unique and vital place in the cultural landscape of Vancouver.

PBO regularly joins forces with internationally celebrated Canadian guest artists, providing performance opportunities for Canadian musicians while exposing West Coast audiences to a spectacular variety of talent. The Orchestra has also toured BC, the northern United States and across Canada as far as the East Coast. The musicians of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra have been at the core of many large-scale productions by Early Music Vancouver in recent years, including many summer festival performances led by Alexander Weimann.


Goldberg Variations
Early Music Vancouver

Goldberg Variations

Goldberg Variations Artists: The Pacific Baroque Orchestra (Chloe Meyers & Majka Demcak, violins; Joanna Hood, viola; Elinor Frey, cello; Soile Stratkauskas, flute; Matthew Jennejohn & Lot Demeyer, oboes; Ellis Reyes,…

Friday, September 20, 2024 | 7:30 p.m.
Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver
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Goldberg Variations – Victoria
Early Music Vancouver

Goldberg Variations – Victoria

Goldberg Variations – Victoria Artists: The Pacific Baroque Orchestra (Chloe Meyers & Majka Demcak, violins; Joanna Hood, viola; Elinor Frey, cello; Soile Stratkauskas, flute; Matthew Jennejohn & Lot Demeyer oboes;…

Saturday, September 21, 2024 | 3 p.m.
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Victoria
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Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Vancouver
Early Music Vancouver

Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Vancouver

Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Vancouver Works by: J.S. Bach & J.D. Zelenka Artists: Hélène Brunet & Suzie LeBlanc, sopranos; Cecilia Duarte, alto; James Reese, tenor; William Kraushaar, bass;…

Sunday, December 22, 2024 | 3 p.m.
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
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Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Victoria
Early Music Vancouver

Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Victoria

Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka – Victoria Works by: J.S. Bach & J.D. Zelenka Artists: Hélène Brunet & Suzie LeBlanc, sopranos; Cecilia Duarte, alto; James Reese, tenor; William Kraushaar, bass;…

Saturday, December 21, 2024 | 3 p.m.
Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria
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Dorothee Mields & the PBO: Bach Ties the Knot
Early Music Vancouver

Dorothee Mields & the PBO: Bach Ties the Knot

Dorothee Mields & the PBO: Bach Ties the Knot Works by: J.S. Bach Artists: Dorothee Mields, soprano & the Pacific Baroque Orchestra directed by Alexander Weimann Pre-Concert Chat: 2:30pm with…

Saturday, February 15, 2025 | 3 p.m.
St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church
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1254 W 7TH AVE
VANCOUVER, BC, V6H 1B6

(604) 732-1610
staff@earlymusic.bc.ca

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Een Romantische Johannes Passion

Historical Performance has been steadily looking toward the nineteenth-century as a source of inspiration, and Orchestra Lagrandt wants to lead the charge into Romantic orchestral performance practice. As an orchestra of ambitious musicians in their twenties from 25 different nations, we aspire to represent the voice of the new generation in Historical Performance.

Een Romantische Johannes Passion is an ongoing project to reimagine the Johannes Passion of J. S. Bach in a late nineteenth century style. The first Passion revivals in the Netherlands took place in Rotterdam in 1870, featuring large symphonic orchestrations, and a radically different musical language than that of the HP and modern classical worlds. In our initial performance with the Tangram Chamber Choir, we pushed the boundaries of what Romantic Bach might have sounded like: exploring changes in orchestration, stoic tempi, rubato, phrasing, nineteenth- century bowing practices, and even portamento. We plan to establish this project as an annual tradition every Easter season, reworking the arrangement each time in the spirit of Romantic spontaneity.


One of the wonderful things about the Historical Performance movement is that we are able to use forgotten practices, this time hailing from the nineteenth century, to present such a beloved and well known-work in a new light.

The world is familiar with stories of clever forgers whose life’s mission is to cunningly reproduce the light and shadows of historical masterworks, from Vermeer’s brushstrokes to Da Vinci’s proportional precision… but what if these crimes of craftsmanship were to extend beyond the visual arts? What if the pieces we know to be by Palestrina, Monteverdi or even Johann Sebastian Bach were in fact stylistic copies, artfully composed by a secret circle of music forgers and passed off as the work of the greats? What if those music forgers are at work as we speak? 

This premise inspires our original program The Music Forgery Workshop. Our early music comedy imagines the lives of such a circle of musical criminals, offering a fresh and lively presentation of historical compositions, not as museum artifacts but as living works in progress. The workshop itself is set up on the stage and its members carry forth the plot in music and words. A narrator in the role of a suspicious inspector lends the performance a theatrical flow. The listener is invited into a satire on high society’s art commerce, while the performers make fun of themselves for having devoted their lives to the niche subject of historical music performance. 

Violinist Elizabeth Sommers combines her skills and experience in traditional music with expertise in the performance and improvisation of medieval and Renaissance repertoires. Multi-instrumentalist Eliot X. Dios (keyboards, bagpipes and flutes) works wholeheartedly to employ storytelling techniques developed through the history of literature and cinema in his early music concerts. Composer Gunnar Haraldsson (violin, guitar) seeks to translate the forms and intentions of early composition for a modern audience. Halldór B. Arnarson (keyboards, voice) has devoted his career to bringing musical craftsmanship from the era of counterpoint to the attention of the public and comedy to the early music scene. Singer and storyteller Ásta S. Arnardóttir brings the storyline to the public with personal immediacy, and through her character work defines the different veins of the show, sometimes hilarious and sometimes serious. 

The story is narrated by the character of the Inspector, acted out by the members of the MFW, and told in rhyming Icelandic verse in one musical pillar of the show, a madrigal composed by our very own 

Halldór in the style of Monteverdi. The show has an entertaining educational dimension. The audience is exposed to a broad sweep of historical and musical information in a condensed form, necessary to understand the musical humour, while dramatic rhythm and scenographic effects prevent overwhelm. We also place particular emphasis on theatrical illusion and synchronisation. One example appears in the opening scene, in which the inspector is seen watching television. On stage, this becomes a complex exercise in coordination: each time the inspector presses a button on the remote control, the musicians instantly switch pieces, creating the impression of rapidly changing television channels. 

This opening scene establishes the tone of the entire show, comical and satirical in its storytelling and diverse in its musical language. It not only introduces the wide range of musical styles that appear throughout the performance, but also functions as the plot’s inciting incident, as the inspector hears a news report about the discovery of a previously unknown concerto by Vivaldi. 

Another important scene takes place when one forger is alone on stage in low light, perusing books on medieval music, while the musicians perform and sing offstage, sounding his audiation as he reads. This intimate moment evokes the sleepless nights spent studying facsimiles and learning historical compositional techniques, by which the forger acquires the inspiration and the expertise necessary to his art, and reveals a hidden side of musical performance: the immense amount of study and preparation that precedes the moment on stage. This setting also creates space for visual and musical comedy, as seen in the trailer video, where a 14th-century melody is played backwards because Halldór is unknowingly reading the facsimile upside-down, only realising the mistake when the music begins to sound absurd. 

Fun and friendship are at the heart of the whole project, though the link between music and crime is an important historical consideration. Classical music was often used as the demonstration of a monarch’s power, music teaching as a cover up for secret affairs, and pieces were published under another’s name for profit. Such examples of “inappropriate practices” carry an exciting and attractive element for the audience which the MFW seeks to exploit. Under this light-hearted surface lies a more serious layer of questions concerning our present-day existence, such as excessive materialism in high society and the threat posed on human craftsmanship and skill by the rise of artificial intelligence. 

Please Note:

The main applicant and creative/intellectual driver of the project must be 30 or under (on May 15th).

The average age of all musicians must not be older than 32, and the maximum age of supporting musicians must be no more than 35 (on May 15th.)