Friday, November 25, 2022 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

Artists: Thomas Dunford, lute

The lute arrived in Europe from Moorish Spain, spreading rapidly in the 15th century and becoming the most popular instrument among courtiers and commoners in the 16th century. Henry VIII played the lute, and made sure that his three children – the future monarchs Edward VI, “Bloody” Mary, and Elizabeth I – learned it, as well. The lute was also a popular feature in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre, which was enjoying its own golden age in the works of William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.

John Dowland, an indisputable master of the lute and lute song repertoire, is quite ‘Shakespearian’ in the range of emotion and expression found in his music, and in his ability to absorb and synthesize the cultural influences of his day.

Bach arranged his Fifth Cello Suite for the lute which gives us unsuspected harmonies and a better understanding of how and where Bach would add ornaments. Thomas Dunford, following in Bach’s footsteps, arranged Bach’s First Cello Suite for archlute, a lute with an extended neck and unstoppable bass strings like the theorbo.

Giovanni Girolamo Kapsperger was an Austrian-Italian virtuoso performer and highly original composer whose compositions for the lute and theorbo were fundamental in the development of these as solo instruments.

Pre-concert Talk at 7 p.m.: Suzie LeBlanc in conversation with Thomas Dunford.

This concert is generously supported by José Verstappen and Jonathan Drance.

Friday, October 28, 2022 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

Artists: Ensemble Diabolus in Musica

During the 12th century, as the famous historian, Georges Duby said, “a new springtime of the world blossomed, on the old Latin stock.” The unchanging social order which prevailed before the year 1000 was now jostled by the feudal system. In southern France castles and monasteries were built, far from the declining influence of the king or the pope. Painting, sculpture, architecture, and music celebrated the beauty of the world in a new way.

In the same regions and exactly at the same time, Roman art flourished and new chants were being created in the generous acoustics of these new basilicas and chapels. In the domains of the great Saint-Martial de Limoges abbey notably, polyphony birthed its first audacious and jubilant elaborations, and the first notated secular songs of France were being created by the troubadours who celebrated courtly love.

Diabolus in Musica is a French medieval music ensemble founded in Paris in 1992. Now under the direction of Nicolas Sansarlat, the ensemble continues to programme rediscovered Medieval works alongside the richness of the well-known musical works by the Troubadours, Trouvères and the Notre Dame School.

Join us for the Pre-concert Talk at 7 p.m. – our Artistic and Executive Director, Suzie LeBlanc chats with Nicolas Sansarlat, director of Musica in Diabolus, and Emmanuel Vistorky, one of the singers from the ensemble.

This concert is generously supported by Agnes Hohn.

Friday, October 14, 2022 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

Artists: Members of the Accademia de’ Dissonanti – Elinor Frey, cello and direction; Laura Andriani, violin; Rossella Croce, violin; Isaac Chalk, viola; and Jan De Winne, flute

Boccheriniana celebrates one of the most delightful and original voices of the classical era, Luigi Boccherini, alongside European composers from the same era, Mozart, J.C. Bach, and Maddalena Lombardini Sirmen. During this time, now known for its elegant ‘galant’ music, Boccherini championed his instrument, the cello, and played as a travelling virtuoso until he settled in Madrid as court composer. Our concert showcases a variety of chamber music favourites: flute quintets, string trio, and quartets. Building on a successful 2020 tour, the program of the group Accademia de’ Dissonanti reunites string players Laura Andriani, Rossella Croce, Isaac Chalk, and Elinor Frey, together with the celebrated traverso player, Jan De Winne, flute professor at the Paris and Brussels conservatories.

This concert is generously supported by Zelie & Vincent Tan and David McMurtry.

Friday, September 30, 2022 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

Artists: Ensemble Castor; Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt, violin and direction; Hélène Brunet, soprano

A fun alternative to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, this concert pairs concertos for Ensemble Castor’s six musicians with arias and motets by the Venetian ‘Red Priest.’ We welcome the wonderful soprano Hélène Brunet who will unleash her dramatic abilities and virtuosic roulades through arias filled with nature characterizations such as birdsongs, tempests, hunts and pastoral life. Vivaldi uses themes from his Four Seasons in several of his vocal arias and ‘Gelido in ogni vena’ echoes the theme of the first movement of his famed Winter concerto.

“These players never fail to find something to say … lovely, imaginative performances on some sweet-sounding instruments!” – Gramophone, August 2017

Ensemble Castor: 
Rodolfo Richter, solo violin
Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt and Nina Pohn, violins
Peter Aigner, viola
Kristina Chalmovska, cello
Barbara Fischer, double-bass
Erich Traxler, harpsichord

The Pre-Concert Talk  at 7 p.m. features EMV’s Artistic/Executive Director Suzie LeBlanc in conversation with Petra Samhaber-Eckhardt and Hélène Brunet.

This concert is generously supported by Simon Murphy.