Bach gets top billing at the Winnipeg Free Press annual classical music festival

Bach is back.

Johann Sebastian Bach, that is. The German composer – whose music is often associated with the courtly gestures and court intrigues of 1700s Europe – and the works of his contemporaries will once again be in the spotlight during the week of the Winnipeg Baroque Festival, which begins Sunday, four centuries later.

“This style of music is very elegant. Music in Shakespeare's time,” says Andrew Balfour, Artistic Director and Resident Composer of The Dead of Winter Choir. “These composers we present are the highest level of Elizabethan music. They were the best of the best.”

AARON VINCENT PHOTO Andrew Balfour's Dead of Winter Choir kicks off the Winnipeg Baroque Festival. — PHOTO BY AARON VINCENT

Andrew Balfour's Dead of Winter Choir kicks off the Winnipeg Baroque Festival.

Dead of Winter kicks off a nine-concert program at Crescent Arts Center on Sunday at 3 p.m. with a show that includes music from the Baroque era, as well as new works by 2023 Juno Award nominee Balfour and new works by Yellowknife. Carmen Braden, two-time winner of the Western Canada Music Award for Classical Composer of the Year.

Toronto-based countertenor Daniel Cabena and viola da gambas, a Renaissance-era string quartet, the Cardinal Consort Viols, join Dead of Winter, with Balfour and Mel Brown sharing conducting duties.

Male tenors and female sopranos are popular voices in 21st-century operas and classical music concerts, but 400 years ago, male countertenors who could sing in the highest registers in music were the stars of shows attended by kings and queens. .

Think Sting singing the hit Cop Roxanne or Michael Jackson does Beat it for modern pop models of countertenor singing.

“Like Freddie Mercury, all these guys can sing really high,” says Balfour. “In this context, for this concert, it was a particularly elegant style, it was sacred music, music sung at the highest level.”

The love of Bach and his contemporaries does not end there. Bach Marathon, which will be held on April 20 at 1 p.m. at the Young United Church, will be an important celebration.

The name of the concert suggests a baroque-all-day event, but instead it's a come-and-go, pay-what-you-want three-hour Bach-a-palooza presented by the Winnipeg chapter. of the Royal College of Organists of Canada.

In addition to using the church's Letourneau pipe organ, pianists, string players and flutists perform Bach's music during the concert, while Bach and his wife – or at least a Bach tribute artist in baroque costume – run the show.

“I'm thinking of it as a Bach talent show,” says Nolan Kehler, one of the festival's organizers and Dead of Winter board member, a chorister with many city groups. “It allows us to break down any elitism or expertise that we feel needs to exist around the genre.”

The marathon is one of several instrumental concerts that are new to the festival in 2024.

This broader perspective means a chance to hear violinist Carl Stobbe, concertmaster of the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra and associate concertmaster of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, perform in a solo performance at St. Andrews River Heights United Church on April 21 at 3 p.m.

Stobbe's latest album, Ysaÿe, JS Bach & Paganini: Works for Solo Violin, Released on March 22, includes his performance of Bach Violin Partita No. 1 in B minor, BWV 1002.

“Carl Stobbe is a world-class violinist with the Winnipeg Symphony,” says Balfour. “I think we'll be able to showcase more than just the choir, and hopefully we can continue to do that in the years to come.”