{"id":23384,"date":"2022-12-01T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T17:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23384"},"modified":"2022-12-16T09:27:23","modified_gmt":"2022-12-16T17:27:23","slug":"festive-cantatas-celebrates-christmas-with-bach-performance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2022\/12\/01\/festive-cantatas-celebrates-christmas-with-bach-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Festive Cantatas<\/em> celebrates Christmas with Bach performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December, Early Music Vancouver Pacific Baroque Series returns to Victoria to present a collection of Bach\u2019s more festive compositions. Festive Cantatas: J.S. Bach Magnificat & Cantata BWV 110 (\u2018Let Our Mouth Be Full of Laughter\u2019)<\/i> explores the human side of the Christmas story by blending instrumentation and vocals to create a polyphonic experience.<\/p>\n

Pacific Baroque Orchestra director Alexander Weimann says he chose these pieces because of their momentous power to make an emotional impact and really move the listener.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose them because of their, I would almost call it a physical power,\u201d he says. \u201cI find it difficult to listen to them without feeling the impact, without being affected somehow, and those pieces are just joy and dance, really. They are so exhilarated.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Pacific Baroque Orchestra director Alexander Weimann (photo by Alex Waterhouse).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Weimann says that performing the music is a kind of spiritual experience, but not in a theological sense. It\u2019s about connecting with other people and rejoicing in the raw emotion of the human condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the moment that you perform it, it\u2019s really about very deep primary emotions, like joy. If you look at it, every spiritual experience we have in life is an experience with people,\u201d Weimann says. \u201cSpirituality we experience through other people, and so to me that\u2019s what it is, it\u2019s the message that being human and procreating and giving birth or dying, all of those [are] spiritual, and in this case, it\u2019s related to the birth, excitement about new life. This is something that we share, it\u2019s a story that we need to hear, and Bach tells it really beautifully. After almost three centuries, it\u2019s amazingly alive still.\u201d<\/p>\n

Creating a piece of living music from an old sheet of paper is challenging and thrilling, says Weimann, and it\u2019s a new experience, a new journey of discovery, every time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI enjoy listening to music come alive. Sometimes if you do pieces that are never recorded, that they exist only on paper, that\u2019s super exciting,\u201d he says. \u201cThe object is the piece, and understanding what the composer meant with it, and what it meant to the people, and what it can mean to us, and then on the practical side, to navigate that shape that every group of performers is, and make it happen, yeah, it\u2019s very exciting. It really is different every time, even without the intention of it being different every time. It\u2019s like you drive the same roads, but it\u2019s never the same twice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weimann is also a conductor, and he believes that in every performance of a piece, it\u2019s the conductor\u2019s job to grasp the disparate pieces\u2014the different instruments and vocalists\u2014and pull them together tightly to create a cohesive whole that does justice to the music on the sheet. The magic of live music is about the energy created and shared between the musicians and the audience, he says, and that\u2019s a timeless experience that can never be replicated by tuning in remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that I think we almost need to learn again, after the pandemic, to treasure the singularity of the moment, because we very much rely on either the digital streaming of concerts, if you\u2019re into that, or a recording, but to be in one room, not just one Zoom room, but one room, really, we need to appreciate that,\u201d Weimann says. \u201cThere\u2019s something about hearts beating in the same room, that experience of simultaneity, in a way. It\u2019s all energy. I think energy is the only reality, the only matter, and that\u2019s why I think that music is so charged, that we feel that energy, and even after hundreds of years, it\u2019s still really electrifying music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Festive Cantatas
\n<\/i>7:30 pm Friday, December 16
\nVarious prices,\u00a0Christ Church Cathedral
\npacbaroque.com\/festive-cantatas-2022<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In December, Early Music Vancouver Pacific Baroque Series returns to Victoria to present a collection of Bach\u2019s more festive compositions. Festive Cantatas: J.S. Bach Magnificat & Cantata BWV 110 (\u2018Let Our Mouth Be Full of Laughter\u2019) explores the human side of the Christmas story by blending instrumentation and vocals to create a polyphonic experience. Pacific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23385,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,278],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-30-2022"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23386,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23384\/revisions\/23386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}