Sunday, January 14, 2024 | 4:00 p.m.The Sanctuary, Vancouver Unitarian Church

Artist: Elinor Frey, cello

At the heart of the repertoire of nearly all cellists, Bach’s cello suites are among the most appreciated works of music lovers around the world. The suites highlight how Bach is particularly adept at mixing particular characteristics of the cello. For example, because of its unique range, from the low bass to the soprano, the cello is able to create the illusion of multiple voices, a polyphony inspired by the use of Bach’s harmony and melody, wonderful techniques that intrigue the ear at every moment. The suites were probably composed around 1720 when Bach lived in Cöthen in the service of Prince Leopold, when he composed much secular and instrumental music, including works for solo violin and the famous Brandenburg concertos. For this concert, the main source is the manuscript copy of Anna Magdalena Bach, as no Bach autographs survive. The fifth suite requires a non-standard tuning, C-G-d-g, common in Bologna in the mid-seventeenth century, which gives the suite a deep, warm, and resonate tone for it’s highly-French stylized movements in heartfelt c minor key. The third suite’s key of C Major allows the cello to express its bright and joyful charm.

This concert is generously sponsored by the RPC Family Foundation

Elinor Frey, cello

Elinor Frey is a leading Canadian-American cellist, gambist, and researcher. Her albums on the Belgian label Passacaille and Canadian label Analekta  – many of which are world premiere recordings – are the fruit of long collaborations with artists such as Suzie LeBlanc, Marc Vanscheeuwijck, and Lorenzo Ghielmi, as well as with composers including Maxime McKinley, Linda Catlin Smith, Christian Mason, and Lisa Streich. Elinor’s recording of cello sonatas by Giuseppe Clemente Dall’Abaco received a Diapason d’Or and her critical editions of Dall’Abaco’s cello music is published in collaboration with Walhall Editions. Early Italian Cello Concertos, her album in collaboration with Rosa Barocca orchestra, won the 2023 JUNO Award for Classical Album of the Year (small ensemble).

Elinor is the artistic director of Accademia de’ Dissonanti, an organization for performance and research, and she has performed throughout the Americas and in Europe in recital and with numerous chamber ensembles and orchestras (Constantinople, Les idées heureuses, Il Gardellino, Tafelmusik, Pacific Baroque Orchestra, etc.). In March 2023, she performed Boccherini and Sammartini concertos with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra.

Recipient of dozens of grants and prizes supporting performance and research, including the US-Italy Fulbright Fellowship (studying with Paolo Beschi in Como, Italy) and a recent research residency at the Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Elinor holds degrees from McGill, Mannes, and Juilliard. She teaches Baroque cello and performance practice at McGill University and the Université de Montréal and is a Visiting Fellow in Music (2020–2023) at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University. Frey was awarded Québec’s Opus Prize for “Performer of the Year” in 2021.

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