If you’re going to throw a classical music festival, you want Johann Sebastian Bach as your headliner. At least according to Early Music Vancouver artistic director Matthew White.
A composer with the divine virtuosity of Prince and the commercial appeal of Coldplay, Bach is not only a rockstar of the early and classical music scenes, says White, but a name that transcends those worlds, as well.
“Bach is obviously a sort of early music composer who everybody in the early music world knows, but he’s also a composer who appeals to people from every musical interest, every genre,” White explains, of the 18th-century German great.
White is the driving force behind Vancouver’s inaugural Bach Festival, running in the heart of the city at Christ Church Cathedral from Aug 2-12. Billed as a veritable best of Bach, the festival is the first summer classical music festival of its size to take place in Vancouver since the closure of MusicFest in 2013.
For White and other classic music programmers, the void left by MusicFest – an inclusive, century-spanning music festival held at multiple venues throughout downtown – was palpable.
“When MusicFest folded in 2013, I think a lot of classical music lovers in Vancouver were really disappointed,” says White. “Early Music Vancouver had been a really big part of MusicFest Vancouver, and when it folded we still continued – and continued successfully – at UBC, but I think it still bothered all of us that we’d had to give up on this idea of a slightly wider appeal-type festival in downtown Vancouver.”
Looking for a way to resurrect a similarly diverse classical event while also honouring Early Music Vancouver’s mandate of presenting music performed on rare period instruments in a historically-informed context, White felt there was only one man who could tie it all together.
“The thing that’s amazing about Bach is there’s lots of composers who have written lots of great music, but I don’t think there’s any other composer who’s written so much great music in so many different sizes, you know what I mean?” White says. “The whole universe can be the Bach Cello Suites, or it can be in The Art of the Fugue. And then he’s also just as capable of writing disarming, incredibly beautiful stuff for huge orchestra and choir, so I just wanted to provide a real overview of Bach’s genius, from his most intimate works to his most enormous works.”
For this first year, the Bach Festival will focus strictly on its namesake, presenting the many sides of Bach performed by some of the best in the world in their fields. Highlights include star soprano Yulia Van Doren and seven other vocal soloists performing Bach’s awe-inspiring Mass in B Minor, accompanied by Montreal's Arion Baroque Orchestra (Aug. 5); Grammy-nominated violinist Monica Huggett and oboist Gonzalo Ruiz reuniting for their revolutionary interpretation of Bach’s Orchestral Suites for a Prince (Aug. 12), Davitt Moroney’s recital of Bach’s “greatest puzzle”, The Art of the Fugue (Aug. 3); past Leipzig International Bach Competition winner Beiliang Zhu performing Bach’s transportive Cello Suites (Aug. 11); and French pianist and improvisational genius Dan Tepfer returning for a second time with his jazz-influenced Goldberg Variations/Variations (Aug. 2).
“Dan Tepfer is a jazz pianist who has been extremely successful with his Goldberg Variations/Variations program, and actually brought it here to Vancouver about three years ago,” White explains. “The idea is to make connections between seemingly separate musical genres and his show is almost sold out now. People sort of wonder, ‘Why are you starting a period instrument festival with a modern jazz pianist on a Steinway?’ Because there’s nothing really period about that,” he laughs. “But one of the things about Bach that people forget is he was one of the greatest improvisors to ever walk the earth. He was just a monster, monster musical improvisor who was capable of making really difficult, complicated things up on the spot.”
And for those who think Early Music Vancouver might run out of shows to present if it themes a festival around Bach again next year, White invokes the name of another great who keeps on giving.
“There’s something new written about Bach every week, and that’s part of the reason why putting a Bach festival on makes so much sense. He still captures people’s imagination in the same way that Shakespeare does, in a way. In fact, that’s part of the reason why I’m thinking of this as sort of a rebrand of our summer music festival,” says White. “Like Shakespeare and Bard on the Beach, Bard on the Beach uses Shakespeare as an ambassador for all great theatre and I think Bach can do the same thing for music.”
• Vancouver Bach Festival runs Aug. 2-12. For tickets and showtimes, go to EarlyMusic.bc.ca.
