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Early Music Vancouver Events

Currently viewing listings for: Past Events

Purcell & Nyman: Music After Awhile feat. Iestyn Davies, counter-tenor & Fretwork

Tuesday October 29, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

Iestyn Davies is a British countertenor widely recognised as one of the world’s finest singers, celebrated for the beauty and technical dexterity of his voice and intelligent musicianship. Simply put, he is one of the best countertenors in the world, performing regularly in lead roles at the world’s most important opera houses (the Metropolitan Opera, the Glyndebourne Festival, and Covent Garden). While widely respected as an opera singer, he is also valued as one of the finest interpreters of early and contemporary song repertoire. This concert highlights his work with English composer Michael Nyman, the songs of Henry Purcell, and Fretwork, the celebrated viol consort. Expect bold harmonies, wondrous inventions, and melodies that will haunt your dreams – whether from the 17th century or the 21st.

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Le Concert Spirituel: Baroque Orchestral Suites feat. Jeanne Lamon

Saturday September 28, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

The legendary violinist and long-time music director of Toronto’s Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Jeanne Lamon, leads sixteen members of Victoria Baroque in a selection of grand Overture Suites and ravishing Concerti Grossi celebrating the first-ever public concert series in Paris. Formed in 1725, Le Concert Spirituel brought music – previously exclusive to the courts – to the public realm, and became a platform to the finest of the French and touring artists. This concert revels in the splendours of the French Suite and Italian Concerto, contrasting and blending two distinct national styles and celebrates our 50th season opener with the spearheading public concert series that became the most acclaimed and imitated series in 18th century Europe. Music by Telemann, Haydn, Rebel, and more.

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Purcell Hail Bright Cecilia

Friday August 9, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Chan Shun Concert Hall at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

The last, and greatest, of Purcell’s four Odes to the Christian saint, Hail! Bright Cecilia was composed to a text by Nicholas Brady in 1692 in honour of the feast day of Saint Cecilia, patron saint of musicians. It is a celebratory work comprised of masterful instrumental sections, majestic choruses and varied solos, duets and trios that will serve as a fitting close to the Festival. This work reveals the unparalleled richness of the composer’s musical invention and explains why, more than three hundred years later, Henry Purcell is still regarded as one of the Baroque period’s greatest composers.

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Strozzi 17th Century Divas feat. Suzie LeBlanc & Dorothee Mields, sopranos

Thursday August 8, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

Being published in one’s lifetime was a great accomplishment for composers of the 17th century – especially if you happened to be a woman! Barbara Strozzi published eight collections of exquisite arias and madrigals on the familiar subject of love gone wrong that are of a similar, superlative standard to those of her contemporary Claudio Monteverdi. Strozzi’s remarkable output as an artist is thanks in part to the patronage she enjoyed from the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Vittoria della Rovere who was an important proto-feminist of the early 17th century who believed in the important of supporting virtuoso women artists, musicians and writers. This concert celebrates Strozzi’s 400th anniversary with a programme of sensual and playful arias and duets performed by two of the greatest interpreters of 17th century vocal music living today.

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Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues feat. David Jalbert, piano

Thursday August 8, 2019 | 1:00PM (Pre-concert talk at 12:15PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

Montreal pianist David Jalbert provides a finely nuanced and impassioned argument for what more people should recognize as one of the 20th century’s greatest sets of compositions for the piano. Following the example of J.S. Bach in setting one prelude and one fugue in each of the 12 major and minor keys of the modern Western scale, Shostakovich, writing in 1950, offered a staggering range of styles, ideas and counterpoints. This is beautiful music that goes from quiet noodlings to full-scale keyboard assaults. The set was written for the young Tatiana Nikolayevna, the winner of the first International Bach Competition in Leipzig at which Shostakovich had been a judge. Jalbert, as demonstrated in his 2008 recording for ATMA Classique, is capable of mesmerizing across the whole range.

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Handel Early Cantatas feat. Amanda Forsythe, soprano

Wednesday August 7, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

At age 19, George Frideric Handel, not satisfied with being simply a local wonder in his native Germany, set off for Italy — the center of the 18th century musical universe — to find fame and fortune. In Rome, he worked alongside some of the most important musicians of the time and it was there that the young composer wrote some of his most dramatic, virtuosic and exciting works. This exceptional concert features the return of internationally-acclaimed soprano Amanda Forsythe with Pacific MusicWorks under the direction of Stephen Stubbs. The programme includes Handel’s Armida Abbandonata which was part of J.S.Bach’s personal library.

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Before Bach: 17th-Century Music for Strings & Winds

Wednesday August 7, 2019 | 1:00PM (Pre-concert talk at 12:15PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

Parnassus Musicus: Music of the Austrian Habsburgs

In the early Baroque era, the Austrian Habsburg courts at Graz and Vienna were a cauldron for a rich stew of German and Italian music. The young Archduke Ferdinand (1578–1637) established a vibrant musical ensemble at his court in Graz, where German musicians were gradually joined by Italian newcomers who introduced Baroque novelties like canzonas, sonatas, and concertos. The Italians had triumphed by the time that now-Emperor Ferdinand II took up his throne in Vienna in 1619. In this programme featuring Austrian instrumental music of the early Baroque, La Modestine, Cappella Borealis, and special guests join forces to explore Habsburg music from both sides of the Alps, including motets, canzonas, sonatas, and sacred music for violins, sackbuts, organ, and voices.

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Palestrina, Monteverdi & More: Song of Songs

Tuesday August 6, 2019 | 7:30PM (Pre-concert talk at 6:45PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

The ancient Song of Songs originated as erotic love poetry around 2500 years ago. It was interpreted by both Judaism and Christianity as an allegorical understanding of the believer’s relationship with God. In Christianity, musical settings of the text became particularly popular in 16th and 17th Centuries, when word expression and moving the listener became increasingly important. Indeed, these settings go beyond concepts of “sacred” or “secular”: Religious belief, longing, sensuality and eroticism become inextricably combined and perfectly expressed by this stunning music. This programme features five of the world’s best vocal soloists specializing in the vocal chamber music of the 17th and 18th centuries. Programme designed by Alex Potter.

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Bach Clavier-übung III – The Organ Mass, feat. Alexander Weimann

Tuesday August 6, 2019 | 1:00PM (Pre-concert talk at 12:15PM)
Christ Church Cathedral

Clavier-Übung is the German word for “keyboard practice”. In late 17th and early 18th centuries this was a common title for keyboard music collections, although today it is usually associated with J.S. Bach’s comprehensive and jaw-dropping achievement in four parts. The Clavier-Übung III, is the third part of J.S. Bach’s collection and is often referred to as the German Organ Mass. It is a collection of compositions for organ started in 1735–36 and published in 1739 that is considered Bach’s most significant and extensive work for organ, containing some of his most musically complex and technically demanding compositions for that instrument. For the first organ recital ever programme as part of the Vancouver Bach Festival, Vancouver’s organ virtuoso Alexander Weimann plays excerpts from this collection including the Prelude and Fugue in E♭ major, BWV 552.

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