Past Events - Early Music Vancouver

Online Concert – The City of Ladies

Wednesday, March 9 at 7:30 PM through March 15 at 5:00 PM, 2022 Online I Servir Antico

In this concert film, Servir Antico tell the story of Christine de Pizan (1364 – ca.1430), a revolutionary woman who questioned the treatment of women and their prescribed place and role in society in her magnum opus, The Book of the City of Ladies. Though it was heavily criticized at the time, the poet Martin Le Franc, unlike most other men, championed her cause and helped spread awareness of the importance of women as active and multifaceted citizens. The programme is in praise of womankind, with works from the Ars Subtilior, compositions by Baude Cordier and Soulage, and anonymous compositions alongside works by Binchois and Dufay. Catalina Vicens and Servir Antico present this exquisite concert, which was recorded in the medieval chapel of Notre-Dame- à-la-rose in Belgium.

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Live Concert – Women of Note

Friday, March 4, 2022 | 7:30 pmChrist Church Cathedral - an online version will be available from March 23, 2022. This concert originally premiered live on March 4.

This concert showcases the music of 18th-century female composers who, though forgotten or ignored by history, in their day shared the stage with and enjoyed the respect and friendship of composers we now regard as musical giants, including Haydn and Mozart. Like their male colleagues, these women were highly acclaimed both as composers and as performing musicians. They include the star singer and playwright Amélie-Julie Candeille; the stateswoman, keyboard player, and opera composer Maria Antonia, Electress of Saxony; the master violinist Maddalena Laura Sirmen, who was trained at one of Venice’s famous musical orphanages; and the virtuoso singer and pianist Marianne Anna Katharina von Martinez, a frequent duet partner of Mozart’s, an influence on his compositional style, and a member of the prestigious Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna. Their music is brimming with the elegance and eloquence of the Classical era.

This concert is generously supported by Dorothy Jantzen

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Online Concert – Pardessus in Paradise – J.S. Bach & His French Contemporaries

Wednesday, February 16, 2022 | 7:30PMOnline - This concert was originally recorded on August 4, 2021.

The works selected by Mélisande Corriveau and Eric Milnes for this evening present a vibrant array of French musical styles developed during the 18th century before the French Revolution. The origin and development of the pardessus de viole – known in France as “the woman’s violin”- coincided with the increasing prominence of the violin in French instrumental fashion. The crowning glory of the viola da gamba family, the pardessus – the smallest of the viola da gamba family of instruments – facilitated the instrument’s rise in popularity in France. Most of the works which will be performed were selected from the microfilm collections of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and few had been recorded until Mélisande’s recent recording. They are charming, playful, luminous and exquisitely elegant.

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The Story of the Madrigal – CANCELLED

Friday, February 4, 2022 | 7:30 pmChrist Church Cathedral

Profeti della Quinta has had to cancelled their tour due to the rising cases of Covid 19. We look forward to when they’ll be able to perform with us in the future.

The singers of Profeti della Quinta and the bassist and composer Elam Rotem specialize in music from the Baroque and Renaissance periods. They are dedicated primarily to the rediscovery of Hebrew vocal music – great works that are often very much overshadowed by the popular klezmer tradition in Jewish heritage in this country. The Madrigal was the most prominent genre of secular vocal music in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods. This program follows its evolution from the highly expressive polyphony of Cipriano de Rore, to the revolutionary madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi that shaped the Baroque era.

“…This expertly performed collection of Italian madrigals, Hebrew prayers and instrumental music deserves recognition as a hidden gem.”

This concert is generoulsy supported by Sharon Kahn & Barry MacFadden, Birgit Westergaard & Norman Gladstone.

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Hebreo – The Search for Salamone Rossi by Joseph Rolichtz with Profeti della Quinta (Film)

Friday, February 4th at 1:00 AM - Sunday, February 6th at 1:00 AM.Online

In the late Renaissance Salomone Rossi, a young Jewish violinist, burst through the barriers of discrimination and became one of the most renowned composers and performers at the court of the Gonzaga dukes. Yet very little is known about his personal and creative life. In this documentary, Profeti della Quinta performs Rossi’s music in the magnificent town of Mantua, in preparation for a special concert in the Gonzaga dukes’ pleasure palace. With the help of expert historians and musicologists, they shed fascinating light on this elusive man and his extraordinary music.

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Prophets Outside Their Country – Corelli & the Italians | Digital Concert Hall

Wednesday January 19, 2022 | 7:30PMOnline

The history of European music has been shaped by the uprooting and travels of artists seeking work, fame, knowledge or financial stability. In this programme, we tell the stories of Italian composers Geminiani, Brescianello, Locatelli, and Corelli who left home to seek a better future. This concert will showcase the virtuosic brilliance of violinist Chloe Kim, named as one of Canada’s top 30 under 30 by CBC last year when she was just 23-years-old.

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The (Very) First Viennese School – CANCELLED

Friday, January 7, 2022 | 7:30 pmChrist Church Cathedral

The Baroque ensemble Quicksilver has had to cancelled their tour due to the rising cases of Covid 19. We look forward to when they’ll be able to perform with us in the future.

When the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II moved his court to Vienna in 1619, this great Hapsburg city became home to a thriving international musical scene. Emissaries sought out the best players and composers from all over Italy to make Ferdinand’s court as cosmopolitan and sophisticated as possible. This was the birth of what we could call today the very first Viennese school, long before the great Classical period. Like the Classical composers, these musicians made a specialty of the great instrumental form of the sonata. But unlike those of Mozart and Haydn, the seventeenth-century sonata was a novel and experimental form that supported a way to create a purely instrumental discourse in music.

This concert is generously supported by José Verstappen.

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Festive Cantatas: Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with The Pacific Baroque Orchestra

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 | 7:30PMOnline

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

Friday, December 3, 2021 | 5:30 pm & 7:30 pmPacific 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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