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Home  >  Early Music Vancouver Events  >  Series - Summer Festival 2023

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Currently viewing listings for: Series - Summer Festival 2023

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July 27 Rondeau in Carthage: EMV’s 2023 Fundraising Event

Thursday, July 27, 2023 | 6 p.m. Nuba in Gastown & SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

Join EMV’s Artistic/Executive Director Suzie LeBlanc, C.M. for a sumptuous dinner at Nuba Lebanese Restaurant that includes an auction of exclusive artwork and a musical performance followed by VIP seats to the world premiere of The Queen of Carthage across the street at the SFU Goldcorp Centre. We will be joined this evening by special guests: Dr. Debi Wong, Artistic Director re:Naissance Opera; Catalina Vicens, opera musical director/EMV 2023 Artist-in-Residence and musical guests Kiya Tabassian and Didem Başar of Constantinople.

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July 27 The Queen of Carthage – World Premiere

Thursday, July 27, 2023 | 8:00 p.m.SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Charlotte Siegel, soprano; Marisa Gold, choreographer and dancer; Dr Debi Wong & Stephanie Wong, stage directors; Catalina Vicens, music director/2023 Artist-in-Residence; and EMV Festival Players directed by Catalina Vicens: Chloe Meyers, violin 1; Majka Demcak, violin 2; Nolwenn Le Guern, viola da gamba; Margaret Little, viola da gamba; Natalie Mackie, violone; Erin Headley, lirone; Antione Mallette-Chénier, triple harp; Lucas Harris, theorbo

Additional Crew: Vanka Salim, lights/design lights/design; Roberta Doylend, costumes

A seamless blend of Baroque and contemporary song and dance, this interdisciplinary performance is a powerful reclamation of the story of Dido, The Queen of Carthage, and her legacy as a political leader, an empire builder and a woman of colour. This operatic performance, created by re:Naissance Opera, features commissioned works by contemporary composers Jessica McMann, Robyn Jacob and Afarin Mansouri, along with those of Baroque composers Henry Purcell and John Dowland. This project places Dido through a prism, in which her story as a multifaceted leader, lover and outcast are shown in their fullness.

Co-produced by:  Early Music Vancouver and re:Naissance Opera

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July 28 Il Ponte di Leonardo

Friday, July 28, 2023 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Marco Beasley, tenor and Constantinople directed by Kiya Tabassian

Marco Beasley, a leading figure in Renaissance music, joins Constantinople under the direction of Kiya Tabassian, to immerse us in the audacious, imaginative world of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings. In 1502 da Vinci drafted the plans for a bridge in Constantinople (now Istanbul) that was to span the Bosporus, but it was never built. A continuation of their journey tracing the footsteps of great visionaries, this concert celebrates the originality of an artist and scientist who left a profound mark on the history of humankind and builds the bridge he envisioned between East and West. 

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July 29 The Well Tempered Organ!

Saturday, July 29, 2023 | 2 p.m.West Vancouver United Church

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artist: Alexander Weimann, organ

The “well” temperaments of Bach’s day were tuning systems carefully designed to let keyboardists play in every key without re-tuning their instruments. Inspired by Bach’s famous Well-Tempered Clavier, Alexander Weimann has assembled a new collection of pieces spanning the whole harmonic spectrum. This concert showcases the extraordinary range of Bach’s organ writing, seen through the lens of Alex’s profound artistry and musical knowledge.


PROGRAMME

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Pièce d’Orgue in G major, BWV 572

Fantasia in C minor, BWV 1121

Aria in F major (“after Couperin”), BWV 587

Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 649

O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross, BWV 622

Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639

Toccata and Fugue in E major BWV 566

Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’, BWV 662

Fugue in B minor (“on a Theme of Corelli”), BWV 579

Vater unser in Himmelreich, BWV 682

Praeludium in A minor, BWV 569

Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565

Fugue in G major, BWV 577


PROGRAMME NOTES

Johann Sebastian Bach’s relationship to the organ was lifelong and multifaceted; it was as an organist that he first embarked on his professional career, and some of his last published works (the Canonic Variations and so-called “Schübler” Chorales) were devoted to the instrument. The organ was central to Bach’s activities as a teacher, a legendary performer and improviser, and an exacting composer, and it shaped both his professional identity and his legacy. Bach’s obituary of 1754 remembered him as the “most prodigious organist and keyboard player that has ever been,” but his reputation did not rest on virtuosity alone. Throughout his life, Bach took an interest in organ building and design, and he was one of the technical masters of central Germany called upon to examine and inaugurate new instruments.

Organ building was a monumental enterprise, involving architectural design, church governance, civic planning and pride, and the latest mechanical, mathematical, aesthetic and acoustic understandings of the day. While some of these organs can still be played and heard today, one of the factors that Bach may have been evaluating is difficult to recapture—how the instruments were tuned. Music historians have argued that Bach lived through part of a shift in musical aesthetics away from the “meantone” tunings of previous centuries—which favoured pure euphonious thirds at the cost of some irredeemably bad intervals in keys that were therefore unusable—toward more modern “well” temperaments allowing for a greater range of keys that were acceptably in tune. The work of theorists such as Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1706) helped to promote the notion of a closed circle of fifths (C-G-D-A-E-B-F♯/G♭-C♯/D♭-G♯/A♭-D♯/E♭-A♯/B♭-F-C) in which enharmonic notes like G♯ and A♭ are equivalent. (By contrast, some earlier keyboards built for meantone tunings had split keys that allowed for G♯ and A♭ to be played as different pitches—woe to the player who attempted a fifth between, for instance, G♯ and E♭!) The solutions that Werckmeister and his colleagues proposed could thus be thought of as “circular” or “circulating” temperaments, permitting the player to move freely around the whole circle of keys.

The prospect of playing the pieces of Bach’s famous Well-Tempered Clavier collections in a single sitting without retuning the instrument requires such a tuning, as do keyboard works that move a long way chromatically from the home key (as Bach no doubt liked to do when he was improvising). Interestingly, the theorists of Bach’s day were aware of the equal temperament that has become the norm today—where each fifth in the circle, and thus each semitone in the octave, is the same size—as an abstract possibility, but few of them found it at all appealing. At least until the end of the eighteenth century, close listeners seem to have cherished the subtle variations between keys produced by unequal, well temperaments. Johann Mattheson, for instance, writes that F♯ minor, “although it leads to great sadness, is somewhat languid and amorous rather than lethal,” whereas B♭ major “is very diverting and showy, however, somewhat modest.” Part of the great interest of collections like the Well-Tempered Clavier—and the new “collection” formed by this programme—is the way they invite us to notice how the composer’s approach to each key might be unique. 

It is difficult to tell how quickly such temperaments caught on in German organ building. Unlike the tuning of stringed keyboard instruments, organ tuning was a relatively permanent affair, considering the time, labour, and materials needed to adjust it. (Bach, according to his son Carl Philipp Emmanuel, could tune a harpsichord to his satisfaction in fifteen minutes.) A given organ’s pitch and temperament would quite possibly have influenced the way music was generally performed in the surrounding area—a kind of acoustic centre of gravity. What seems clear is that Bach’s music frequently makes demands that it would take a well-tempered instrument to satisfy.

We can easily imagine that Bach might have often composed with an individual organ particularly (though not exclusively) in mind. The chorale preludes contained in the Orgelbüchlein (“Little Organ Book”) may have been conceived for the newly rebuilt organ in Weimar or for the Liebfrauenkirche’s larger instrument in Halle, which was noted as having a “tolerably good temperament.” “O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross” (BWV 622) and “Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ” (BWV 639) are both part of this collection, whose title page professes an intention to show “an inquiring organist . . . how to implement a chorale in all kinds of ways.” These settings of traditional Lutheran hymns are unique and endlessly inventive, and several of them push the harmonic envelope: “Ich ruf zu dir” is in the highly unusual key of F minor, which it traces out with an innovative broken-chord accompaniment in the left hand. “O Mensch, bewein” is also very close to the “flat” extreme of the tonal spectrum, perhaps to reflect the poignant Passion text. The decorated melodic line is spun out over some astonishing harmonic turns; most surprising (and notorious) is the introduction of a C♭ major triad right before the end of the piece.

The other chorale settings in this programme are also drawn from printed or manuscript collections: “Ach bleib bei uns, Herr Jesu Christ (BWV 649) from the “Schübler” Chorales, a late publication of organ transcriptions of movements from Bach’s own cantatas; “Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr’” (BWV 662) from a series of chorales copied and revised during Bach’s Leipzig years; and the complex “Vater unser in Himmelreich” (BWV 682), a rendition of Martin Luther’s versification of the Lord’s Prayer, from the third volume of Bach’s Clavierübung (“Keyboard Practice”). The selections that make up the rest of this programme are diverse in style and genre, from the iconic Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565) to the Aria in F major (BWV 587)—an almost exact transcription for organ of a movement from François Couperin’s Les Nations. These pieces are mostly “homeless,” surviving in rare and sometimes rather mysterious manuscript copies. Perhaps Bach would have smiled to see these scattered offspring gathered together again in a celebration of the musical language—and the musical instrument—he was so intent on exploring throughout his life.

  • Connor Page
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July 30 Songs Without Words: Women in music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Sunday, July 30, 2023 | 3:00 p.m.Pyatt Hall

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artist: 2023 Artist-in-Residence Catalina Vicens, keyboards

This recital by EMV’s Artist-in-Residence Catalina Vicens features songs without words on medieval organetto, virginals, harpsichord and organ. In Medieval and Renaissance times, only courtesans or women living in exceptional circumstances, like Isabella d’Este, were permitted to sing in public. They found ways around this by playing the keyboard and letting their fingers do the talking.

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August 1 Our City of Ladies

Tuesday, August 1, 2023 | 7:30 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Servir Antico, directed by 2023 Artist-in-Residence Catalina Vicens

Founded and directed by Catalina Vicens, Servir Antico breathes new life into European vocal and instrumental music from the age of Renaissance humanism. With Our City of Ladies, the ensemble continues to explore The City of Ladies, an allegorical city conceived by Christine de Pizan  (1364-1430) to defend and protect women and their right to education. Servir Antico’s journey is to expand the walls of the City started five centuries ago and to invite everyone to take part in its existence.

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August 2 The Bach Parodies

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 | 1:00 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Jessica Korotkin, cello and director; Majka Demcak, violin; Elana Cooper, viola, & Diederik van Dijk, cello

While the concept of ‘parody’ is today associated with humor and satire, in the context of music composition, it refers to the creative process of recycling musical material. This program pays homage to Bach, showcasing an eclectic variety of Bach-inspired musical parodies. The concert includes works by J S Bach, Mozart, Gounod, and Korotkin.

You can read more about Jessica Korotkin and Bach Parodies in this article from Early Music America Magazine.

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August 2 The Ladies Vespers 

Wednesday, August 2, 2023 | 7 p.m.Christ Church Cathedral

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Nadine Balbiesi, Myriam Leblanc, Jane Long, Ellen Torrie, Liselot de Wilde, sopranos Liz Hamel, Emma Parkinson, Vicki St-Pierre, Krisztina Szabo, altos with members of Elektra Women’s Choir and the EMV Festival Players, directed. by Alexander Weimann

Festival Players: Chloe Meyers, violin 1; Christi Meyers, violin 2; Margaret Little, viola da gamba; Erin Headley, lirone and viola da gamba; Natalie Mackie, violone; Matthew Jennejohn, cornetto; Ellen Marple, sackbutt; Alex Fisher, sackbutt; Jeremy Berkman, sackbutt; Lucas Harris, theorbo; Antoine Malette-Chénier, triple harp; & Alexander Weimann, music director, keyboard

During the 17th century, women composers were most often either nuns educated in convents or the daughters of musical families such as Florence’s Caccini clan. The works presented in this concert come from both the secular and sacred worlds of 17th-century Italy, written for celebration in the cloister and private devotion in the home. This music abounds with all the inventiveness, refinement, and energy of the age of Monteverdi. 

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August 3 Atempor/elle: In search of inner coherence

Thursday, August 3, 2023 | 1 p.m.The Annex

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Stéphanie Brochard, dance; Margaret Little, viola da gamba

A woman, with all her strengths and vulnerabilities. Timeless, not belonging to the present or the past, with no choice but to face herself. She digs through the layers of her past, present and future to reconcile herself, fragmenting herself to better consolidate all her identities. Atempor/elle is a duet in which music and dance form a single voice—the voice of a soul in an inner quest for coherence.

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August 3 Milton in Love: The Birth of Opera in the Eternal City

Thursday, August 3, 2023 | 7:30 p.m. Pyatt Hall

NOTE: Tickets go on sale Monday, April 3 at noon.

Artists: Nadine Balbiesi, Ellen Torrie and Myriam Leblanc, sopranos; Atalante, directed by Erin Headley; Lucas Harris, theorbo; Antoine Malette-Chénier, triple harp  

Milton in Love paints a portrait of the English poet John Milton’s sojourn through Rome where he fraternized with the Illuminati, attended opera and oratorios, and became enamored with the singing of soprano Leonora Baroni. The laments display the sensuality, ecstasy, and eroticism of early Baroque Rome, and the performances by Erin Headley and her ensemble are sure to surprise and delight audiences as well. 

Together with a chitarrone, triple harp, baroque guitar, lirone and viola da gamba, the ensemble supports a trio of female voices who bring to life a multimedia programme of ultra-expressive laments. 

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