Early Music Vancouver’s Festive Cantatas
byFor many, the hallmark of any holiday season is joyful, nostalgic, and moving music. This season you can savour magnificent sounds and move your spirit with Early Music Vancouver’s Festive Cantatas: J.S. Bach Magnificat & Cantata BWV 110 (‘Let Our Mouth Be Full of Laughter’) December 17th and 18th.
Early Music Vancouver’s Festive Cantatas
- When/Where: 7:30pm December 17 at Kay Meek Centre (1700 Mathers Ave, West Vancouver)
- When/Where: 3:00pm December 18 at The Chan Centre (6265 Crescent Rd, Vancouver)
- Tickets: Single tickets available online now from $36. Select your show date above and purchase from the appropriate box office. For information on special single ticket offerings for youth, students and Indigenous peoples, please visit this page and scroll down to the bottom.
Bach’s Magnificat explores a wide spectrum of human responses to the Christmas story, from humility to ecstasy, sober consideration to laughing astonishment, and extroverted declamation to introspective affirmation. In them, we hear Bach amplifying the voices of different people and exploring their personal perspectives, especially that of an ordinary young woman, Mary, as she responds to the astounding news that she would give birth to the Son of God. The musical result is polyphonic in every possible sense.
“Bach clearly intended to create something splendid, sparkling, and full of joy with his Magnificat and Cantata BWV 110,” says EMV’s Artistic & Executive Director Suzie LeBlanc, C.M. “The bringer of joy in Bach’s music is often the trumpet, and these works feature three trumpets as well as three oboes to multiply the effect. ‘Wake up’ sings the bass and the trumpet at the end of Bach’s Cantata 110 – a wake-up call akin to Handel’s ‘Sound the Trumpet’ in Messiah! I hope this sumptuous and festive concert reconnects us to our fundamental and inherent feelings of joy.”
Early Music Vancouver’s Festive Cantatas: J.S. Bach Magnificat & Cantata BWV 110 features JUNO Award-winning artist Hélène Brunet (soprano); Portland’s Arwen Myers (soprano); Hungarian-Canadian Krisztina Szabó (alto); winner of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s Competition, Jacques-Olivier Chartier (tenor); and one of today’s most sought-after voices, Sumner Thompson (bass); along with The Pacific Baroque Orchestra, directed by Alexander Weimann.
There is a Pre-Concert Talk for the December 18th concert at The Chan only at 2:30pm with broadcaster/author Bill Richardson in conversation with Alexander Weimann.
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