2025 Vancouver Salish Sea Early Music Festival

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VANCOUVER

ST. MARY'S KERRISDALE
2490 West 37th Avenue
· Vancouver ·
www.stmaryskerrisdale.ca

St. Marys Kerrisdale

St. Mary's Kerrisdale

Suggested Donation:
$15, $20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone welcome)
• 18 and under FREE •
All concerts at 7:00 PM

St. Marys windows

Stained glass at St. Mary's

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is a 501(c)3 organization and all donations are fully tax deductible in accordance with the law. Your donations are welcomed at https://www.salishseafestival.org/donate .

✣ Presented in collaboration with St Mary's Kerrisdale Church ✣

2025 Salish Sea Early Music Festival in Vancouver
~ Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries in Vancouver and around the Salish Sea ~
~ Presented in collaboration with St. Mary's Kerrisdale ~

~ Tuesdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:00 PM ★ download updated flyer here ~

Tuesday, May 6 at 7:00 PM:

— The MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS XIV
· Caroline Nicolas, viola da gamba
· William Simms, baroque guitar
· Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute

The MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS XIV features music by prominent soloists, all composers, who frequently played for Louis XIV, including the king’s guitar instructor Robert De Visée and his Italian predecessor Francesco Corbetta, along with a favorite viola da gambist at the court, Marin Marais and his teacher Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe, as well as Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, a young harpsichordist and one of the few famous female musicians of her time whose playing and compositions Louis deeply admired and subsidized.

This program stands apart in a variety of ways. Jeffrey Cohan discovered the earliest known French solo specifically for the transverse flute by the king’s court music librarian André Danican Philidor L'Aisné in a relatively unknown and as yet unpublished manuscript which was prepared in 1695 by Philidor himself as a present from Louis XIV for the Duke of Bavaria. Marin Marais asserted that his music for viola da gamba might be played on the transverse flute, as is to be realized in a Suite from his first book of pieces for viola da gamba. Similarly a sonata by Jacquet de La Guerre assumes new resonance in our realization for transverse flute, gamba and guitar. Caroline Nicolas and William Simms will perform solos for viola da gamba and guitar by De Visée, Corbetta and Sainte-Colombe.

The French musical perspective emulated reason and moderation, with sensory perception serving comprehension. French musicians aspired to thrill the senses via the intellect, in a continual search for grace and elegance. Dance was viewed as the consummate expression of the mastery of body and mind and the epitome of aristocratic art, as evidenced by Louis XIV's daily dance lessons for 20 years alongside frequent guitar lessons. Every French court and church musician reflected musically their determination to depict refinement and true sentiments, while dispensing with excessive turbulence and contrast. All of this contrasted greatly with the Italian focus on the direct expression of emotions via their virtuoso and flamboyant approach, which was indeed admired in some circles in France.

Tues, May 20 at 7 PM: — CONCERTI from the COURT of FREDERICK THE GREAT
   · David Schrader, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
   · Elizabeth Phelps, baroque violin
   · Courtney Kuroda, baroque violin
   · Christine Moran, baroque viola
   · Susie Napper, baroque cello

A concerto by Frederick II, the monarch of Prussia from 1740, will be included alongside the Suite in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach, whose visit to the king's court in 1747 is legendary, and concerti by Frederick's keyboardist Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach for both harpsichord and flute.

Tuesday, June 10 at 7:00 PM: — FOLK SONG FROM THREE CENTURIES II
   · Oleg Timofeyev, renaissance lute, English guitar & 7-string guitar (made in 1820)
   · Jeffrey Cohan, renaissance, baroque & 8-keyed flutes (London, 1820)
          Renaissance Psalms (~1620), Irish and Scottish baroque (~1720) and folk music as interpreted during Beethoven's lifetime (~1820) in a new program of highly experimental renditions of popular music from three centuries performed on 5 transverse flutes and three plucked instruments.

Friday, July 11 at 7:00 PM: — THE 18TH-CENTURY HARPSICHORD IN SPAIN
· Irene Roldàn, harpsichord
Step into the heart of 18th-century Iberia, where the vibrant court of Madrid stood as a focal point for the flourishing of the rich keyboard music of Domenico Scarlatti, Sebastian de Albero, Jose de Nebra, and the Portuguese Carlos Seixas.

Late July: — JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (only in Bellingham)

   · Irene Roldàn, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
          Spanish harpsichordist Irene Roldàn from Basel and Jeffrey interpret Bach's phenomenal music for flute and harpsichord.

UKRAINE

Olena Zhukova

It is a great honor to feature Ukrainian harpsichordist Olena Zhukova of Kyiv, Ukraine, a leading harpsichordist and a tireless ambassador of early music in her country and abroad during this difficult period. She has performed since the outbreak of full-scale war in prominent performances sponsored by distinguished institutions all around Ukraine, Poland, Austria, France, Switzerland and Czech Republic for international festivals and in collaboration with major artists, orchestras and opera productions. Ms. Zhukova is also an accomplished scholar who published and presented more than 20 articles, while devoting herself to her harpsichord class and chamber music students as Associate Professor at both the National Music Academy of Ukraine and the Gliére Academy of Music (Kiev), where she founded the harpsichord class. Recent engagements during the past few months alone include Bach's Goldberg Variations in the prestigious Organ Hall in Lviv, Ukraine; the first major classical performance for the public in Chernihiv, Ukraine since the outbreak of war entitled French Music in Times of War and sponsored by the Ambassador of France, in a newly rebuilt performance hall in Chernihiv that had previously been extensively damaged by a Russian strike at the beginning of the conflict; and an involved program, consisting exclusively of new music in part composed for her by today's Ukrainian composers, for Columbia University’s Global Center in Paris and its Institute for Ideas and Imagination.

Ms. Zhukova will appear in the following two programs:

Dates to be announced: — HARPSICHORD MYSTERY

(Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma only)

· Elena Zhukova, harpsichord
The Ukrainian harpsichordist deciphers mysterious and elusive rarities as well as standards for solo harpsichord by Byrd, Couperin, Rameau and Scarlatti alongside Ukrainian gems including a harpsichord sonata by Dmitry Bortnyansky. [only in Seattle, Vancouver and Tacoma]

Dates to be announced: — EUROPEAN TOUR 1690-1790
   · Elena Zhukova, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute
          An excursion through a century of transformation and diversity by decade and culture within the baroque and classical periods, through the perspective of composers for harpsichord and flute from France, Italy, Scotland, Germany and Ukraine.

~ Earlier concerts this 2025 season ~

Friday, January 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM: — THE CANZONA
   · Vicki Boeckman, renaissance recorders
   · Tina Chancey, tenor viol
   · Jeffrey Cohan, renaissance transverse flutes
   · Anna Marsh, dulcian (renaissance bassoon)
    Featuring special guest renaissance specialist and innovative improviser Tina Chancey from Hesperus in Washington, DC, this in-depth exploration of the Italian four-part canzona, which blossomed in print from 1577 through the mid 1600’s, traces its development from 1533, when commercial music printing was in its infancy in Europe, through 1636 at which point more “baroque” stylistic forms such as the sonata and the suite had begun to emerged. Canzonas by Florentino Maschera (1582), Floriano Canale (1600), Giovanni Dominico Rognoni Taegio (1605), Antonio Troilo (1606), Giovanni Gabrieli (1608), Girolamo Frescobaldi (1608), Giovanni Antonio Cangiasi (1614), Giacomo Biumi (1624), Nicolo Corradini (1624), Giovanni Buonamente (1636) and others are to be included in the program along with examples of the earlier French and Flemish songs of the early 1500's that inspired them, including well known chansons published specifically for instrumentalists in 1533, 1577 and 1588, among them Clement Jannequin’s “Song of the Birds”. Renaissance winds of three distinct families along with the fretted viols provide an exciting blend and a distinct character to each of the four intertwining musical lines.

Friday, February 28, 2025 at 7::00 PM: — THE CHACONNE with LES VOIX HUMAINES

   · Susie Napper, viola da gamba & treble viol
   · Mélisande Corriveau, viola da gamba & pardessus de viol
   · Elisabeth Wright, harpsichord
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque and renaissance flutes

Les Voix humaines, the widely celebrated prize-winning duo of viols from Montreal joins us for a program demonstrating the chaconne at it's most poignant, transporting three important works by Johann Sebastian Bach to an entirely new level through their own transcriptions, and presenting other remarkable but rarely heard repertoire for two viola da gambas, pardessus de viol, flute and harpsichord.

The hypnotic French chaconne that developed during the reign of Louis XIV brings the listener from one emotional realm to the next in a regular procession of episodes that transition gently in an emotional direction or leap suddenly with emotion and stark contrast, now uplifting or sad, majestic or introspective, hopeful or questioning. The pulse may feel broader, then more angular, then running with abandon or pregnant with poise, always cleverly evolving in the presentation of a musical story.

Bach and Telemann succeed in bringing this chaconne to a whole new level, as we'll experience with "Les Voix Humaines" in their very own transcription of Bach's Chaconne in D Minor for 2 viola da gambas, originally for solo violin, and in the chaconne entitled Modéré from Telemann's Paris Quartet No. 12 in E Minor for flute, pardessus de viole, viola da gamba and harpischord. Two outstanding quartets for two viola da gambas, flute and harpsichord celebrating this unusual combination of instruments will be heard alongside two additional transcriptions: for flute, pardessus de viol and harpsichord of Bach's Organ Trio Sonata in D Minor, and for solo harpsichord of the Allemande from Bach's D Major Suite No. 6 for solo cello.

From the standpoint of the Salish Sea Early Music Festival and as Tobias Hume asserted in 1605, "Now to use a modest shortness, and a brief expression of my self to all noble spirits": Les Voix Humaines is simply phenomenal!

LISTEN: Les Voix Humaines plays Sieur de Sainte-Colombe's Les Pleurs - Chaconne Le rapporté

In 1676, Thomas Mace accurately expressed their sentiments: "I have been more Sensibly, Fervently, and Zealously Captivated, and drawn into Divine Raptures, and Contemplations, by Those Unexpressible Rhetorical, Uncontroulable Perswasions, and Instructions of Musicks Divine Language."

A perfect description of their vision of music making, Sloane wrote c.1794: "There must be an Order and just Proportion, Intricacy with Simplicity in the Component parts, Variety in the Mass, and Light and Shadow in the whole, so as to produce the varied sensations of gaiety and melancholy, of wildness and even surprise and wonder…"

And as Thomas Mace says in 1676: "…When we come to be Masters… we can command all manner of Time, at our own Pleasures; we Then take Liberty for Humour and good Adornment-sake, to Break Time; sometimes Faster, sometimes Slower, as we perceive, the Nature of the Thing Requires, which…adds much Grace and Luster to the Performance."

Friday, March 14, 2025 at 7:00 PM:

— FRENCH BAROQUE TRIO SONATAS

     with MUSICA ALTA RIPA
   · Anne Röhrig, violin
   · Bernward Lohr, harpsichord
   · Susie Napper, viola da gamba
   · Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute

French trio sonatas and quartets spanning more than 60 years through the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis V, alongside a "Paris Quartet" written by Georg Philipp Telemann for his visit to Paris in 1738.

Marin Marais (1656 – 1728)

— Trio C major (1682)
Jean-Baptiste Quentin, the young (before 1690 – ca. 1742)

— Trio in G minor Opus 8 No. 1 (after 1729)
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain (1705 – 1770)

— Trio Sonata No. 3 in D Minor (1743)
Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné (1697 – 1764)

— Violin Sonata in A Minor
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689 – 1755)

— Trio Sonata Opus 37 No. 2 in e minor (1732)

MUSICA ALTA RIPA
Harpsichordist BERNWARD LOHR is director of Hanover's Musica Alta Ripa, one of Germany's most active and extensively recorded period instrument ensembles. Baroque violinist ANNE RÖHRIG, leads the Hannoversche Hofkapelle (the "Hanover Court Orchestra"), another of the premier baroque orchestras that contributes to the vibrant early music scene in Hannover and Northern Germany. “Hannover” originally evolved from "Hohes Ufer", meaning "high riverbank" or "Alta Ripa" in Latin. Bernward Lohr and Anne Röhrig are professors at music conservatories in both Hannover and Nuremburg, Germany. Their more than 30 recordings have garnered many of the most important awards in Europe for recordings including the Diapason Dòr, the Cannes Classical Award, the German Recording Critics' Prize, and several times the coveted Echo Klassik Award. Both were awarded the 2002 Music Award of Lower Saxony.

~ Last Season ~

✣ ✣ ✣ FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024 at 7 PM in VANCOUVER ✣ ✣ ✣

THREE CENTURIES:

GUITAR, THEORBO & FLUTE

Michael Freimuth

~ renaissance guitar & theorbo ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ renaissance & baroque flutes ~

16th Century

Diego Ortiz • William Byrd

Giovanni Bassano

Girolamo Dalla Casa

17th Century

Giovanni Paulo Cima

Girolamo Frescobaldi

Giovanni Battista Fontana

Giovanni Battista Buonamenti

Bartolomé de Selma y Salaverde

18th Century

Arcangelo Corelli • André Chéron

Robert de Visée

Join us for the opening 2024 Salish Sea Early Music Festival and an unusual and expansive journey through the music for guitar, lute and flute of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, including elaborate jazzed-up versions of well known songs of the time, published by the incredible wind instrument virtuosi of the late 16th century, along with canzonas, sonatas and suites from Spain, Italy, England and France. The instruments include the renaissance guitar, which is considerably smaller and more mellow-toned than its modern descendant, theorbo (an extremely long-necked lute), the one-piece cylindrical renaissance flute along with the bass renaissance flute, and the one-keyed baroque flute.

✣ ✣ ✣ Monday, February 19, 2024 at 7:00 pm in Vancouver ✣ ✣ ✣

SIMPHONIE NOUVELLE:

LOUIS XIV & J.S. BACH

Stephen Stubbs

~ baroque guitar ~

Susie Napper

~ viola da gamba ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

guitarists

Diego Francesco Corbetta (1615-1681)
Robert De Visée (c.1655-1733)
viola da gambists

Monsieur de Sainte Colombe (c.1640-c.1700)
Marin Marais (1656-1728)
Jacques Morel (c.1680-c.1740)
flutist

Michel de la Barre (c.1675-1745)
composers

Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de la Guerre (1665-1729)
François Couperin (1668-1733)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Louis XIV gathered the finest musicians of France at his court in Versailles and this program features many of the late 17th and early 18th-century guitarists, viola da gambists, flutists and other composers associated with his illustrious musical establishment, alongside the Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1034 of Johann Sebastian Bach.

✣ ✣ ✣ Tuesday, February 27, 2024 at 7:00 pm in Vancouver ✣ ✣ ✣ Renaissance flute and lute

GEORG PHILIPP TELEMANN:

PARIS QUARTETS

David Greenberg

~ baroque violin ~

Elisabeth Wright

~ harpsichord ~

Susie Napper

~ viola da gamba ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

Quadri a violino, flauto traversiere, viola da gamba

o violoncello, e fondamento (1730):

Concerto II in D Major

Sonata II in G Minor

Nouveaux quatuors en six suites (1738):

Premier Quatuor in D Major
4e. Quatuor in B Minor

Having been invited by several of the most prominent French musicians to visit Paris, Telemann composed and published the first set of his remarkable "Paris Quartets" in 1730, and left Hamburg for Paris seven years later, where all 12 of the quartets were performed, almost surely with Teleman himself on the harpsichord. The second set of quartets was published in Paris during this visit in 1738. Two years later Telemann related the following:

"The admirable performances of these quartets by Messrs Blavet (transverse flute), Guignon (violin), the younger Forcroy [i.e. Forqueray] (viola da gamba) and Edouard (cello) would be worth describing were it possible for words to be found to do them justice. In short, they won the attention of the ears of the court and the town, and procured for me in a very little time an almost universal renown and increased esteem."

(the following concert is not at St. Mary's)
✣ ✣ ✣ Wednesday, March 6, 2024 at 7:00 pm ✣ ✣ ✣

ITALIAN RENAISSANCE CANZONAS

at the Westacres Music Room

23575 - 124 Avenue in Maple Ridge

Vicki Boeckman ~ renaissance recorders

Jeffrey Cohan ~ renaissance flute

Stephen Creswell ~ viola

Anna Marsh ~ renaissance bassoon (dulcian)

The Westacres Music Room and the Salish Sea Early Music Festival present Renaissance Italian Canzonas with four specialists performing on instruments of the renaissance including Vicki Boeckman on renaissance recorders, Jeffrey Cohan on renaissance transverse flute, Stephen Creswell on viola and Anna Marsh on dulcian, or renaissance bassoon.

The concert will provide an in-depth exploration of the Italian four-part canzona which blossomed in print from 1582 through the early decades of the 1600’s and was inspired by French and Flemish chansons of the early 1500’s. It will trace the development of the canzona from 1529, when commercial music printing was just beginning in Europe, through 1636 at which point more “modern” stylistic forms such as the sonata began to take the place of the canzona, which had bridged the musical styles of the Renaissance and the Baroque. Canzonas by Andrea and Giovanni Cima, Giacomo Biumi, Floriano Canale, Giovanni Buonamente, Florentino Maschera, and others are to be included in the program along with instrumentl renditions of the earlier French and Flemish songs that inspired them. All will be performed on the recorder, transverse flute, viola and renaissance bassoon or dulcian of the 16th century which create a beautiful blend and provide a distinct character to each of the four intertwining musical lines.

✣ ✣ ✣ Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 7:00 PM at St. Mary's ✣ ✣ ✣ Arwen Myers

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SPRINGTIME BAROQUE:

AIRS for SPRING

Arwen Myers

~ soprano ~

Elisabeth Wright

~ harpsichord ~

Jeffrey Cohan

~ baroque flute ~

Johann Sebastin Bach

Seele, deine Spätzereien

(from the Easter Oratorio)

Louis-Nicolas Clérambault

Orphée

(Cantata)

George Frideric Handel

Singe, Seele & Flammende Rose

(from 9 German Arias)

Toussaint Bordet

Recueil D'Airs Avec Accompagnement de Flute

(selections)

Francois Couperin

Les Fauvétes Plaintives & La Linote-éfarouchée

(harpsichord solo)

✣ ✣ ✣ Friday, May 10, 2024 at 7:00 PM at St. Mary's ✣ ✣ ✣

RENAISSANCE PSALMS,

IRISH BAROQUE & FOLK

Oleg TImofeyev

renaissance lute, English guitar

& 7-string guitar (1820)

Jeffrey Cohan

renaissance & baroque flutes

& 8-keyed flute (1820)

17th Century

Nicolas Vallet

Jacob Van Eyck

Girolamo Dalla Casa

18th Century

James Oswald

Francesco Barsanti

Turlough O'Carolan

19th Century

Mauro Giuliani

Louis Drouet

Charles Nicholson

This program, in three parts, opens with settings of Psalms and variations on folk melodies by early 17th-century flutist Jacob Van Eyck, lutenist Nicolas Vallet and others performed on renaissance descant, tenor and bass transverse flutes and lute. Then, baroque flute and the rare but once quite popular wire-strung English Guitar of the 18th century is to be heard performing the folk tunes of Scotland and Ireland as interpreted and varied by the early 18th-century composers Francesco Barsanti, Turlough O'Carolan, James Oswald and others. Finally, an Eastern European 7-string guitar made in 1820 in Russia alongside an eight-keyed flute made in London in the same year bring to life variations on popular tunes by Mauro Giuliani, Louis Drouet, Charles Nicholson and other virtuoso flutists and guitarists of Beethoven’s day.

~ updated April 28, 2025 ~
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SSEMF banner: detail from "The Last Time it Reached Zero" by James C. Holl.
baroque flute

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Early Music Ammerica

The Salish Sea Early Music Festival is proud to be an affiliate organization of Early Music America, which develops, strengthens, and celebrates early music and historically informed performance in North America.

All donations through EMA (please see www.earlymusicamerica.org) are fully tax-deductible. Be sure to designate your gift for "EMA Affiliate Organization" and specify that it is for the Salish Sea Early Music Festival. Your gift may be matched by your employer.