Mexican-born, Houston-based vocalist Cecilia Duarte joins Early Music Vancouver for Festive Cantatas
The powerhouse mezzo-soprano sings a program that includes Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191 by J.S. Bach and Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Missa Nativitatis Domini, ZWV 8
Cecilia Duarte. Photo by Filippo Nenna
Early Music Vancouver presents Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka on December 22 at 3 pm at Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
EARLY-MUSIC SPECIALIST Cecilia Duarte comes from a family of musicians, so ever since day one in her native city of Chihuahua, Mexico, she was surrounded by music of all kinds. Her paternal grandparents were classical cellists and pianists. Her mother was always singing Latin American songs from the 1940s and ’50s. Her father sang, played the guitar, and taught her her first piano lessons. She also grew up in a Catholic environment, having three priest uncles (though she never met one of them), so sacred music was around as well.
“I think I might have gotten the early-music ‘bug’ back then, because I always had an affinity for oratorio,” Duarte tells Stir. “Many years after, when I started my formal vocal training, I sung Bach for the first time, and I felt at home.
“Growing up I was always singing, whether it was in school and church choir, or doing musical theatre locally in my home city,” adds the Houston, Texas-based vocalist who has her master’s degree in music. “When I finished high school, I didn’t see any other option for me but to keep singing. I wasn’t sure of what I wanted to sing, but I knew I needed to keep doing it. I started a very long journey of experimentation, learning different music styles, and really exploring the things that felt right in my voice.
“What I love about singing is the privilege of telling stories and connecting with people through them,” she adds. “It is also a very personal experience to connect with the music and discover what I can do with it. I believe we vocalists bring something unique to the table not only because of our voices but also because our different experiences inform the way we give life to a song.”
When Stir catches up with the versatile artist, who also sings contemporary music, she’s in Chicago performing with the Newberry Consort for the first time, doing Latin American Baroque Christmas music (and “having a blast!”). A soloist on the Grammy-winning album Duruflé: Complete Choral Works, Duarte has been praised by the New York Times as “a creamy voiced mezzo-soprano”. Duarte has been recognized for creating the role of Renata in the first mariachi opera, Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, with the Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, commissioned by Houston Grand Opera in 2010. She has taken this opera to stages such as the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Diego Opera, New York City Opera, and beyond.
Duarte has created other roles for world premieres of chamber operas and new works, notably that of Dido in The Queen of Carthage by Early Music Vancouver and re:Naissance Opera; Jessie Lydell in A Coffin in Egypt by Houston Grand Opera and the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in L.A.; and Gracie in A Way Home, by HGO and Opera Southwest, among others.
Next up on her calendar is an appearance in Early Music Vancouver’s Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka. The performance features the coupling of Gloria in excelsis Deo, BWV 191 by J.S. Bach with Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Missa Nativitatis Domini, ZWV 8 of 1726.
The only Bach church cantata set to a Latin text, Gloria in excelsis Deo is based entirely on “Gloria” from Mass in B minor, BWV 232 and premiered in Leipzig on Christmas Day in 1745 to celebrate the Peace of Dresden. Zelenka was the most important Bohemian composer before Christoph Willibald Gluck whose output consisted mainly of sacred music for the Catholic court at Dresden. His Missa Nativitatis Domini was found in Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s personal effects, indicating that the piece was likely known to his father.
Joining Duarte are sopranos Hélène Brunet and Suzie LeBlanc, tenor James Reese, bass William Kraushaar, and the Vancouver Chamber Choir and Pacific Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Alexander Weimann. (A pre-concert chat takes place at 2:15 pm with Weimann, LeBlanc, Reese, and Benjamin Raymond, hosted by David Gordon Duke at the Chan Centre’s Royal Bank Cinema.)
“I did the Gloria many years ago, and I have been re-learning it,” Duarte says. “Oh my, what an exciting piece. Bach’s counterpoint is so much fun to sing. I am completely new to the Zelenka, and I really love it. The duets might be some of my favourite parts of it. I think audiences will enjoy music for this holiday season that is rarely performed with a stellar group of artists.
“What I love about early music is that we get to present something that will never be the same if we perform it again, so it is new every time we do it—kind of like what happens in jazz,” she adds. “Early music is fun, intense, and beautiful. I love how challenging it can be and how intimate it can feel.” 
Related Articles
