On the eve of its second season after moving from UBC’s Point Grey campus to the downtown core, the Vancouver Bach Festival is still riding high on last summer’s record-smashing attendance figures.

“We basically wanted to see if there was going to be any broader interest in the festival,” says Vancouver Early Music artistic director Matthew White, “and last year was really super successful. We sold out a whole bunch of the shows—and even the noon-hour shows, where we really expected no more than 50 people to turn out, were also very well attended.

“So,” he adds, “we basically just figured that if there’s an appetite for it, let’s put more on the menu!”

Growth, however, is not necessarily easy. The 2016 event, White concedes in a telephone interview from California, where he’s vacationing, offered listeners a sort of greatest-hits package. This year’s programming is less purely oriented toward the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, although with St. John Passion and four of the six Cello Suites on the bill the old man won’t get short shrift. It’s also arguably more serious in its intent, with several of the 14 concerts tied in to the 500th anniversary of the publication of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses, the first salvo in the establishment of the Protestant faith.

“The programming this year is more… I mean, I don’t want to say I think it’s more varied and interesting, but I think it is!” White says. “I think it is. But there’s a risk inherent in that, right?”

One concert the former singer hopes won’t be overlooked features Vienna’s Ensemble Cinquecento, at Christ Church Cathedral on Wednesday (August 2).

“They’re an ensemble nobody’s ever heard of—and they’re also one of the world’s greatest polyphonic ensembles, period,” White says of the all-male vocal quartet. “And they’re doing a program of English Reformation music that most people have never heard of—but they should.”

White is also excited about the aforementioned St. John Passion, which closes the festival at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts on August 11. “Really, the singers that we have coming for it are some of the best Bach singers in the world. I’m not exaggerating; they’re really, really world-class singers.

“All of the music on the program this year is not just beautiful and interesting, but it’s special music,” he adds. “If people take a risk on it, they’re going to be happily surprised. And my hope is that in the longer term, a broader range of people will start to trust what we’re putting on, and say ‘Well, I may not know it, but I bet it’s going to be good.’ ”

The Vancouver Bach Festival takes place at Christ Church Cathedral and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts from Tuesday (August 1) to August 11.