Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 boffo Baroque concerts at the Vancouver Bach Festival

Pacific Baroque Orchestra, Arkora, Contrasto Armonico, and much more as Early Music Vancouver puts a jig in the event’s step

By Janet Smith

Arkora Ensemble from Resounding Hildegard. Photo by Chris Randle

EXPRESSIVE ODES to water, a master erhu player, and a collection of exquisite harpsichords: these are just some of the surprises that await at the Vancouver Bach Festival, which kicks off today and runs to August 6.

Weaving the offerings all together is the theme of Scottish Baroque, in which Early Music Vancouver highlights the way 17th- and 18th-century music absorbed traditional melodies and dances..

In other words, this year’s festival has a little more jig in its step.

Here are just some of the concerts worth catching.

#1

Ebb and Flow

July 27, 7:30 pm at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra and other artists gather in a celebration of water—meaningfully connecting the flows of False Creek to that of the River Thames, a locale that’s key to this concert’s lively centrepiece, George Frideric Handel’s Water Music. The composer wrote the uplifting series of courtly dances to be played for King George I and his entourage on a festive barge tour in 1717. Throw in a few Scottish reels, a song cycle by Canadian composer Alasdair Maclean (“Silken Water”), and poetry by Vancouver poet laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam and you have a beautifully flowing program. Catch the preconcert talk at 6:45 pm, where Bill Richardson  speaks with Lam, False Creek Watershed’s Celia Brauer, and author Bruce Macdonald.

Lan Tung

#2

Resounding Hildegard: Echoes of the Abbess in the Present Day

July 28, 7:30 pm at Christ Church Cathedral

Vancouver “electric consort” Arkora brings together the ancient and the contemporary in a program inspired by the progressive music of pioneering 13th-century composer Hildegard von Bingen. The ensemble juxtaposes her chants with recent commissions from Tova Kardonne and Dorothy Chang, plus a world premiere by Curtis Andrews that draws on Carnatic music, ragas, and sargam. Amid the culture- and century-hopping performers are local erhu virtuoso Lan Tung and standout Two-Spirit, Cree-Metis baritone Jonathan Adams.

Les Nations’ Contrasto Armonico. Photo by Jesse Moore

#3

Les Nations

July 29, 7:30 pm, at Christ Church Cathedral

Here’s a chance to check out the Netherlands’ outstanding ensemble Contrasto Armonico, led by Italian-born harpsichord virtuoso Marco Vitale. Through deep research, they celebrate the vast catalogue of trio sonatas by 17th-century Parisian composer Francois Couperin.

The Next Generation’s Marie Nadeau-Tremblay. Photo by Huei Lin

#4

The Next Generation: Baroque Innovations

August 3, 1 pm, at Pyatt Hall

Early Music Vancouver throws the spotlight on emerging artists at this more intimate, sonically crisp venue. In the concert, soprano Ellen Torrie, a Montreal singer-songwriter and storyteller, joins forces with baroque violinist Marie Nadeau-Tremblay to pay tribute to some of early music’s boldest innovators, including Henry Purcell and groundbreaking female composers Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini.

Chloe Kim

#5

Out of the Deep

August 4 at 7:30 pm at Christ Church Cathedral

Mesmerizing singer Jonathan Adams performs again, this time with B.C. violin star Chloe Kim as one of the musicians. Together with violinist Mare-Nadeau Tremblay, viola da gamba player Margaret Little, theory player Lucas Harris, and keyboardist Avi Stein, they explore the extravagant “stylus phantasticus”—“fantastical style”—that took off in German and Austrian courts in the 17th century. Think dazzling, over-the-top violin playing and singing that features extended melismatic notes. Adams and Kim join a preshow talk at 6:45 pm.

---

Related Articles