Classical Music Critics’ Picks

The coming months feature Canadian artist debuts and premieres of new works, along with the reemergence of compositions that have been buried for too long. Whether you’re encountering old pieces or brand-new ones, you’re bound to make a few discoveries this season.

Kate Royal
(April 6 at the Kay Meek Centre)
She’s young, she’s beautiful, and word has it that she sings a little too. British lyric soprano Kate Royal is only just emerging onto the concert and operatic stage, but she’s been garnering accolades left, right, and centre. She snapped up Britain’s prestigious Kathleen Ferrier Award in 2004, and has performed opera at Madrid’s Teatro Real. She’ll make her Canadian debut singing Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, and Joseph Canteloube.
The Draw: If the hype is to be believed, Royal is a treat for the eyes and a feast for the ears.
Target Audience: Those who prefer their divas slim, young, and pretty.

Messa di Gloria, Puccini and Pergolesi
(March 21 at the Orpheum)
To celebrate Giacomo Puccini’s 150th-birthday year, the Vancouver Chamber Choir is teaming up with the Trinity Western University Choir and Chamber Choir in a rare performance of his solemn Messa di Gloria. Packaged alongside Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s sob-inducing Stabat Mater, this piece guarantees you’ll need tissues to get through it.
The Draw: An evening when it’s okay for big girls (and boys) to cry.
Target Audience: Anyone who’s remembered to take their Prozac.

All in the Bach Family
(May 10 at St. Augustine’s Church, May 11 at West Vancouver United Church)
Johann Sebastian Bach may get all the glory, but he wasn’t the only member of his family who had musical chops. His sons Wilhelm Friedemann, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christian were all successful composers in their own right, as was his cousin Johann Bernhard. The Pacific Baroque Orchestra, with guest leader and violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch, is paying tribute to one of the greatest musical families the world has known.
The Draw: Finding out if there’s such a thing as a musical gene.
Target Audience: Amateur geneticists with a penchant for the baroque.

Miraculous Mandarin!
(March 1 to 3 at the Orpheum)
Conductor Kazuyoshi Akiyama leads the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra in an eclectic program featuring Gioacchino Rossini’s overture to La Gazza Ladra, Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major performed by London, Ontario–born violinist Scott St. John, Jean Coulthard’s Endymion, and Béla Bartók’s rarely performed The Miraculous Mandarin. Sure, why not?
The Draw: With a program as diverse as this, you’re sure to find something to like.
Target Audience: Fans of Monty Python’s “And now for something completely different” catch phrase.

Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin
(April 13 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts)
Way back in 1982, in what was then East Berlin, a group of young musicians teamed up to create an independent ensemble that would set itself apart from the state-sponsored musical institutions of the socialist German Democratic Republic. The early-music group quickly gained notice, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 it began touring internationally. It makes its first Canadian appearance here in Vancouver this April.
The Draw: Seeing the human side of European history.
Target Audience: History buffs and freedom fighters.

The Armed Man
(March 15 at the Orpheum)
This acclaimed Mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins premiered in 2000 as a call for peace. Jenkins borrows from the Muslim call to prayer and the Bible, as well as from texts by Rudyard Kipling and a survivor of the Hiroshima atomic bombing. Heavy stuff from the Vancouver Bach Choir.
The Draw: Channelling the spirit of John Lennon and giving peace a chance.
Target Audience: Antiwar protesters in need of inspiration.

The Power of Percussion, with Dame Evelyn Glennie
(May 24 and 26 at the Orpheum)
Scottish-born percussionist Evelyn Glennie became the world’s first solo percussionist—despite losing her hearing in her youth. Her disability is secondary to her virtuosic abilities, however. You can be sure tickets to her performance of Christos Hatzis’s Tongues of Fire, backed up by the VSO, won’t last long.
The Draw: A chance to see a trailblazing performer like this doesn’t come by often.
Target Audience: Parents of drum-kit-bashing teens who need hope for the future.

Love
(April 4 at Matsqui Centennial Auditorium, April 5 at Shaughnessy Heights United Church, April 6 at the Evergreen Cultural Centre)
Chor Leoni men’s choir has organized its concerts this season around four themes: hope, peace, love, and fun. Love features works by Benjamin Britten, Franz Schubert, and Francis Poulenc, among others, in a bid to get you feeling all warm and fuzzy.
The Draw: A chance to relive Valentine’s Day—if you want to.
Target Audience: Newlyweds and hopeless romantics.

Fidelio
(March 22, 25, 27, and 29 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre)
Vancouver Opera was evidently looking to spice up its programming for this season with a hint of politics, bringing in a production of Ludwig van Beethoven’s famed—and only—opera, Fidelio, and setting it in Eastern Europe at the height of the Cold War.
The Draw: Did I mention that internationally acclaimed, Victoria-born Richard Margison is singing the role of political prisoner Florestan?
Target Audience: Card-carrying members of Amnesty International.

Terry Riley’s In C
(March 4 at Heritage Hall)
Terry Riley’s hypnotic In C, composed in 1964, marked the start of that decade’s minimalist movement and influenced the work of luminaries such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. Written for any number of musicians, the piece consists of 53 “cells”, or musical phrases, repeated any number of times by each musician. Every performance is unique, and this one, presented by Music on Main and featuring 12 local musicians including percussionist Sal Ferreras, clarinetist François Houle, and cellist Peggy Lee, has the makings of a memorable evening.
The Draw: A rare opportunity to hear the piece that changed the way contemporary composers think about music.
Target Audience: Aging hippies looking for a good flashback.