Victoria’s Pacific Baroque Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. According to artistic director Marc Destrubé, this year’s festival will focus exclusively on Italian music from the baroque period.
“This year we’re focusing on Italian music mostly composed in the 17th century,” says Destrubé. “That was a really fascinating and interesting time, and exciting time and place in baroque music, because it followed the renaissance and the kind of reformation and somehow the doors opened up to a great deal of experimentation and exploration, and composers were given free reign to explore new ideas.”
Destrubé says that one of the goals of this year’s festival is to showcase baroque’s way of exploring new ways of making music.
“The program titles, they reflect some aspect of the idea that there was a wish for something new and to turn musical traditions on their head and explore a new way of making music,” says Destrubé. “I can be more explicit and say that that new way was dismissing the polyphony, the very complicated way of writing for differing voices in the renaissance and having a way of musical expression that was much more direct and visceral and reflecting the the text in a very immediate way.”
This year may have a specific focus, but the fest has always been centred on the baroque period in general.
“In those 20 years, we’ve focused on music from the baroque period, in music, which is roughly from 1600 to 1750,” says Destrubé. “And we’ve also focused on music that might not be so familiar to people. So the fact of having a festival means that we can do several concerts based on a theme, either a specific period in baroque music history, or a specific place, or a specific type of music. And so every year we’ve done that, we’ve focused on various styles, genres, of music that were composed within the baroque period, and I think introduced our audience to many, many composers and some really wonderful music they might never have heard before.”
Destrubé says that the main challenge in producing this festival every year is tracking down the various types of music to play in the festival.
“The challenges are pretty straightforward,” he says. “Finding a variety of different music that can be played by an ensemble of a limited size, a group of musicians and singers, and making all of that work within a certain budget and hoping that that will be enough support and funding to make it possible. The big challenge is balancing the musical wishes with the practical realities.”
Destrubé says that the main thing he wants his audience to take away from this festival is for them to be entertained.
“First of all, [I hope] that they just have a great time,” he says. “That they hear music that they love, that they’re given a lot of pleasure. And second, that they’re introduced to music that they’re not familiar with. That they’re a little bit challenged and that they’re a little bit educated, along with being entertained, I suppose. And that’s maybe what all good art should do, is both entertain and challenge, a little bit. And give both pleasure and food for the heart, the ear, and the mind.”
Pacific Baroque Festival
Various times, Tuesday, February 27 to Sunday, March 3
Various prices and venues
pacbaroque.com