Early Music Vancouver Events

Wednesday July 28, 2021 | 4:15PMChan Centre for the Performing Arts

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.

Thursday July 29, 2021 | 6:45PMThe Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

The program name ‘Lab’rinths’ evokes the spiritual mystery and human turmoil captured so clearly by Purcell and his contemporaries. Taken from a collection of sacred songs published in 1688 by Henry Playford, ‘Harmonia Sacra’, these devotional songs by Purcell can often be interpreted as biblical ‘mad scenes’: they offer the listener a glimpse into his most dramatic and harmonically adventurous explorations of personal loss, confusion, spiritual angst and delirious ecstasy. These songs will be sung by baritone Jonathon Adams and accompanied by Mélisande Corriveau on viola da gamba and Eric Milnes on organ and harpsichord. Interpolating these vivid scenes are pieces written for two viols by contemporaries of Purcell, including the works of John Jenkins, William Lawes and John Withy. Susie Napper will join Corriveau and Milnes for these instrumental selections.

Thursday July 29, 2021 | 1:15PMThe Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

Eight notes of one famous bass line have placed Johann Pachelbel among the world’s most well- recognized composers. Yet there is much more to him than his ever-popular Canon. This program presents two rarely heard suites from Pachelbel’s major surviving chamber music work, Musikalische Ergötzung (Musical Delight). Featured gems for solo violin and continuo include ciaconnas by Italian composers Antonio Bertali and Nicola Matteis. Both were violin virtuosi who left their native country for successful careers in Vienna and London, respectively. Matteis contributed to steering the English taste toward the florid and fiery Italian school of violin playing. From the earthly to the ethereal, explore the remarkable spectrum of what the chaconne has to offer with these four talented local artists.

Friday July 30, 2021 | 12:45PMThe Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

Today, the five-string cello is treated as an exotic and rarely-played cousin of the standard cello. However, in the 17th and 18th centuries it was simply one of the many instruments used in the family of bass violins and was particularly important for virtuosc sonatas and solos. This programme centres around the five-string cello’s most enduring work, Bach’s Sixth Solo Cello Suite (BWV 1012).

Each movement reveals the instrument’s incredible versatility and remarkable colours. Elinor Frey explores these qualities further through two newer works, “Guided By Voices” by Scott Godin (based on “O Vis Aeternitatis” of Hildegard von Bingen) and “With concord of sweet sounds” by Isaiah Ceccarelli.

Wednesday August 4, 2021 | 12:15PMChan Centre for the Performing Arts

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.