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Mandinka Pilgrimage feat. Constantinople & Ablaye Cissoko, kora

Friday, September 24, 2021 | 7:30 pm
Kay Meek Arts Centre

From the 12th century up to today, the Griots, known as “the Bards of West Africa”, have transmitted their music and knowledge from generation to generation through a sophisticated and unbroken oral tradition. This concert explores the epics of the Mandinka Kingdom, together with the griot master of the kora, Ablaye Cissoko. Montreal’s Ensemble Constantinople will support Cissoko with their signature flair to create a cosmopolitan sound that blends West Africa with Persia.

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Chaconne: In Memory of Jeanne Lamon | EMV DCH

Wednesday, October 6 2021 | 7:30 pm
Online

Eight notes of one famous bass line have placed Johann Pachelbel among the world’s most well- recognized composers. Yet there is much more to him than his ever-popular Canon. This program presents two rarely heard suites from Pachelbel’s major surviving chamber music work, Musikalische Ergötzung (Musical Delight). Featured gems for solo violin and continuo include ciaconnas by Italian composers Antonio Bertali and Nicola Matteis. Both were violin virtuosi who left their native country for successful careers in Vienna and London, respectively. Matteis contributed to steering the English taste toward the florid and fiery Italian school of violin playing. From the earthly to the ethereal, explore the remarkable spectrum of what the chaconne has to offer with these four talented local artists.

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Pilgrimage to Bach: Cantata BWV 82 | EMV DCH

Wednesday, October 13, 2021 | 7:30PM
Online

EMV’s summer artist-in-residence, Jonathon Adams, a Two-Spirit, nêhiyaw michif (Cree-Métis) baritone and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra led from the organ and harpsichord by Alexander Weimann perform J.S. Bach’s BWV 82 “Ich habe genug” (It is enough). The cantata represents a solo journey, or transition, from this world to the next. This multimedia presentation centers on the tension between the physical body and the caged spirit within.

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Andreas Staier Inaugurates EMV’s Graf Piano with Mozart, Haydn & Schubert

Wednesday October 20, 2021 | 7:30 pm
Christ Church Cathedral

EMV welcomes Andreas Staier, one of the world’s most prominent fortepianists and harpsichordists, to inaugurate the newest member of our instrument collection: a fortepiano modelled on an 1819 instrument by Conrad Graf (1782-1851), built by the world-famous Paul McNulty. Graf did much of his most important work during the short life of Franz Schubert, and although he rose to prominence after Mozart and Haydn had died, he was continuing the tradition of Viennese fortepianos with which they were familiar.

The pieces chosen by Staier for this concert are dramatic and colourful, showcasing the wide spectrum of sounds and tones particular to this piano. Haydn’s keyboard pieces are often overlooked compared with those of Mozart and Schubert, but they shouldn’t be. They are full of character and drama. The E flat sonata by Haydn and the B flat sonata by Schubert are among the composers’ very last works and both pieces are thought to be their best keyboard works. Staier’s indisputable mastery will shine in these works inaugurating this newest addition to EMV’s impressive instrument collection.

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Lab’rinths: Purcell & his Contemporaries | EMV DCH

Wednesday November 10, 2021 | 7:30PM
Online

The program name ‘Lab’rinths’ evokes the spiritual mystery and human turmoil captured so clearly by Purcell and his contemporaries. Taken from a collection of sacred songs published in 1688 by Henry Playford, ‘Harmonia Sacra’, these devotional songs by Purcell can often be interpreted as biblical ‘mad scenes’: they offer the listener a glimpse into his most dramatic and harmonically adventurous explorations of personal loss, confusion, spiritual angst and delirious ecstasy. These songs will be sung by baritone Jonathon Adams and accompanied by Mélisande Corriveau on viola da gamba and Eric Milnes on organ and harpsichord. Interpolating these vivid scenes are pieces written for two viols by contemporaries of Purcell. Susie Napper will join Corriveau and Milnes for these instrumental selections.

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Bach’s Sons feat. Elinor Frey, cello & Pacific Baroque Orchestra | EMV DCH

Wednesday, November 24, 2021 | 7:30PM
Online

Of J.S. Bach’s children that survived into adulthood, four became composers whose music we still perform. While their musical facility reflects their father’s influence, each son had a very different path of travel, employment, and development of their musical voice. Johann Christian’s Chromatic Fugue on B-A-C-H pays homage to the serious, contrapuntal style of the past, but usually the Bach sons write in the galant style of their own generation, characterized by simplicity and immediacy of appeal. The closeness of the Bachs sometimes complicates the attribution of their music. The Orchestral Suite in G minor, BWV 1070, once thought to be by father Johann Sebastian, was more likely written by Wilhelm Friedemann. The Cello Sonata in A Major of Johann Christoph Friedrich seems liberated, natural, and comprehensible when played on a cello fit with a fifth string whereas the Cello Concerto in A minor of his older brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel fits well on the more popular 4-string instrument. Each work demonstrates the language of Sensibility (Empfindsamkeit): intimate, sensitive, and subjective. In their music, emotions are fleeting and instantaneous and, above all, the beauty of melody is emphasized.

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Clair-Obscur: Corsican Polyphony feat. Constantinople & A Filetta

Friday, December 3, 2021 | 7:30 pm
Pacific Spirit United Church (formerly Ryerson Church)

Constantinople partners with the seminal Corsican polyphonic singing group A Filetta, to create an enchanting sonic tableau where light and shadow meet, through sacred and secular songs from the rich Corsican musical tradition. Polyphony by the prodigious vocalists of A Filetta, as well as songs and music orchestrated by Kiya Tabassian, will come together in a deeply moving concert.

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Festive Cantatas: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio feat. Pacific Baroque Orchestra

Thursday, December 16, 2021 | 7:30PM
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

This year, EMV’s Festive Cantatas features some of the most popular Christmas music of Germany in the 18th century by Johann Kuhanu and J.S. Bach. Kuhnau was cantor in the Thomaskirche of Leipzig before Bach and in addition to being a remarkable composer, he was a lawyer and a linguist who wrote a satirical novel, Der musicalische Quacksalber (1700). Only recently has Kuhnau’s church music been given a bit of the attention it deserves. Kuhnau’s cantata « Wie Schön leuchtet der Morgenstern » (How brightly shines the morning star) is filled with moments of lyric beauty and expertly-rendered Italianate ritornelli echoed in the solo vocal lines. The quality of this work is an excellent argument for exploring more deeply the musical culture that preceded and influenced J.S. Bach. This cantata contains some of the earliest orchestral writing for natural horns and this may have inspired Bach to do the same in his cantata by the same name as well as in Cantata V of the Christmas Oratorio. The Christmas Oratorio was originally written as six cantatas for six different days between Christmas and the feast of Epiphany.

For this performance of Cantatas IV and V from the Christmas Oratorio, five Canadian soloists of international renown join the musicians of the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, under the direction of Alexander Weimann.

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