Early Music Vancouver announces 2022 Vancouver Bach Festival—Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions
Sixth-annual fest hosts Scottish Baroque experts David McGuinness and David Greenberg as artists-in-residence
Early Music Vancouver 2022 Vancouver Bach Festival artists in residence David Greenberg and David McGuinness.
Early Music Vancouver presents the 2022 Vancouver Bach Festival—Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions from July 26 to August 6 at various venues including The Chan Centre, Christ Church Cathedral, Pyatt Hall, VanDusen Botanical Garden, The Wolf & Hound, and UBC’s Sage Bistro
WHILE IT IS well known that J.S. Bach employed instrumentalists for his church performances, those same musicians also often played in taverns. It was in a pub in Edinburgh’s medieval Old Town where music by the likes of Corelli sat side by side with the rhythmic drive of local reels and jigs. Scottish Baroque, a blend of Scottish traditional music with the style and virtuosity of 17th-and 18th-century Italian music, was born.
Early Music Vancouver’s 2022 Vancouver Bach Festival–Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions celebrates this unique genre in a wide-ranging lineup of 13 concerts and two special events.
Scottish Baroque experts David McGuinness and David Greenberg will be participating as festival artists-in-residence. Both musicians have dedicated their careers to the study of the Italian and Scottish composers of the 17th and 18th centuries. Greenberg is a Baroque violinist, Cape Breton fiddler, composer, and arranger; McGuinness is a music producer and composer for television and BBC Radio, a senior lecturer in music at the University of Glasgow, and the director of Concerto Caledonia who divides his time between historical Scottish music and contemporary work.
Suzie LeBlanc. Photo by Mark Mushet
“Artists-in-Residence David McGuinness (Scotland) and David Greenberg (US/Canada) will make you want to get up and dance as they weave traditional tunes with baroque sonatas!” EMV artistic and executive director Suzie LeBlanc said in a release. “They will take us on a tour of the traditional folk music of Scotland and Cape Breton while other concerts in the Festival will take us to Acadia, Sweden, and Métis musical traditions. Join us and discover the hidden threads between these different cultural traditions and well-known Baroque works by Bach, Vivaldi, Corelli, Muffat, and Couperin.”
Highlights of the 2022 Vancouver Bach Festival–Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions include The Last Rose of Summer (July 29), featuring Pierre-Antoine Tremblay (horn) and Alexander Weimann (fortepiano) performing works by Beethoven and Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn; Les Nations (July 29), with Contrasto Armonico performing L’Impériale and L’Espagnole; and From The Court of Louis XIV to Shippagan (August 2), performed by Suzie LeBlanc, Vincent Lauzer, Marie Nadeau-Tremblay, and Sylvain Bergeron.
A Curious Collection of Tunes on July 28 explores the repertoire of Scottish tunes and their relationship with the European art music of the time, the fiddle music of Scandinavia, and present-day folk composition with Greenberg (violin), McGuiness (keyboard), and Kirsty Money (nyckelharpa). Also on July 28 is Resounding Hildegard: Echoes of the Abbess in the Present Day, when Ensemble Arkora, joined by special guest and erhu master Lan Tung, presents new works by Canadian composers as well as ancient masterworks, highlighting the oeuvre of Hildegard von Bingen.
The Opening Concert–Ebb and Flow on July 27 features Vancouver Poet Laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam, EMV artists-in-residence, and the Pacific Baroque Orchestra in a musical celebration of water, featuring Handel’s Water Music, Telemann’s Hamburger Ebb’ und Fluth, and The Silken Water is Weaving and Weaving by Alasdair MacLean.
Rondeau is a special event on July 26 hosted by author and former broadcaster Bill Richardson, with Lam, Greenberg, McGuiness, and Lucas Harris (theorbo) in support of EMV, while Tea-Table Miscellany on August 6 features performances by soprano Ellen Torrie and tenor Isaiah Bell.
From EMV’s Emerging Artists’ Concert to Fiddle & Figs Pub Night, there’s much more. The fest’s complete schedule, tickets, and more details are at EMV.
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