The new season of Early Music Vancouver started with a presentation of the Goldberg Variations and continues with DanteNova: Music from Dante’s Commedia Oct. 25.
From the wailing cries and silences of Inferno to the angelic concerts of Paradiso, this program revisits the pages of Dante’s Divine Comedy, where music resounds throughout. Dante wrote Comedy around the time when a new musical style, the Ars Nova (New Art) spread throughout France and Italy. La Fonte Musica, directed by Michele Pasotti, is an ensemble whose artistic journey is to unveil the roots of the music composed during the transition from the Middle Ages to Renaissance humanism. They will take listeners on a musical journey through the Ars Nova and Dante’s timeless masterpiece, to Heaven from Hell, as Bill Richardson provides the narration.
Bahauddin Dagar, world master of the rudra veena, an ancient classical musical instrument of India, makes his Vancouver debut Nov. 23.
Countertenor Iestyn Davies joins the viol consort Fretwork, directed by Richard Boothby, in an exploration of the lament on Nov. 26. A genre of the Baroque era, the lamento’s origins lay in early 17th-century Italian opera, before finding its way into sacred music. It was quickly embraced by German sacred composers and Johann Christoph Bach’s Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte, his best-known work that laments the sinfulness of humanity, forms the foundation of this program.
Blessed Echoes: Elizabethan Lute Songs is next on the lineup, on Dec. 5. Robin Pharo and the ensemble Près de votre oreille (Close to Your Ear) offer a dive into English lute song during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. Blessed Echoes brings to light other treasures of Elizabethan and Jacobean song in one, two, three or four voices, which still remain unknown or poorly known, composed by famous poets and composers like Thomas Campion or Philip Rosseter.
The first part of Early Music Vancouver’s new season rounds up with Festive Cantatas: Bach & Zelenka, with performances in Victoria Dec. 21 and in Vancouver Dec. 22.
Festive Cantatas returns with a pairing of the Gloria in excelsis Deo cantata BWV 191 by Johann Sebastian Bach with Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka’s Missa Nativitatis Domini (ZWV 8) of 1726. The only Bach church cantata set to a Latin text, BWV 191 is based entirely on the “Gloria” from the B MinorMass (BWV 232), with an unusual première in Leipzig on Christmas Day to celebrate the Peace of Dresden (1745).
Zelenka (1679-1745), whose output consisted mainly of sacred music for the Catholic court at Dresden, was the most important Bohemian composer before Christoph Willibald Gluck. His Missa Nativitatis Domini was found in Carl Philipp Emannuel Bach’s personal effects, giving us a clue that the piece was known to J.S. Bach.
Festive Cantatas will be performed by Hélène Brunet and Suzie LeBlanc, sopranos; Cecilia Duarte, alto; James Reese, tenor; William Kraushaar, bass; Vancouver Chamber Choir and Pacific Baroque Orchestra, directed by Alexander Weimann.
For more information on these performances and the rest of the Early Music Vancouver season, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
Alon Sariel is Early Music Vancouver’s artist in residence for this summer’s festival. (photo by Suzette Vorster-Van Acker)
‘We are thrilled to offer audiences an adventurous program of some of Bach’s seminal works, but with a twist,” said Early Music Vancouver artistic and executive director Suzie LeBlanc in a press release announcing this summer’s early music festival. “From traditional compositions reworked for unique instruments, such as mandolin and oud, to the introduction of vocal improvisation, inspired by Bach’s own customary practice of instrumental extemporization, Bach Untamed welcomes listeners to seek out new perspectives of Bach’s well-known and beloved classics.”
This year’s festival – which runs July 30-Aug. 8 at various venues – features almost 50 emerging and established early music artists from around the world, including mandolinist and multi-instrumentalist Alon Sariel, who is EMV’s 2024 Summer Festival Artist in Residence.
In addition to headlining two concerts – Alon Sariel: Plucked Bach at Congregation Beth Israel on July 31, in which he will premiere his own Bach-inspired Mandolin Partita, and EMV’s festival finale at the Vancouver Playhouse, which features the Canadian premiere of Amit Weiner’s 2019 reconstruction of Bach’s Italian Concerto – Sariel will perform in several other festival concerts, as well as teach a workshop on Bach for plucked instruments.
Sariel, who was born and raised in Beersheba, Israel, met LeBlanc at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, in the Netherlands, last fall.
“I was playing there with friends from Profeti della Quinta, an Israeli vocal ensemble based in Switzerland, who was already a guest of EMV in the past,” Sariel told the Independent. “Suzie and I had a chat and it turned out I had some very different programs to offer and that a residency could be a lovely idea to feature a few of those.”
Sariel’s first visit to Vancouver was more than 30 years ago, as a kid, with his family. He’s excited to return. He arrived July 24 and will be staying until Aug. 9 – “the final concert, Bach & the Mandolin, with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, is on Aug. 8,” he said.
“The program looks really splendid (a huge shout out to Suzie!) and I’m very glad and proud to wear the artist-in-residence hat this summer – can’t wait really!” said Sariel.
LeBlanc started the artist-in-residence program in 2021 “to create more exchanges between EMV’s guests and the local community.”
“EMV has under its wing a local baroque orchestra – the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, led by Alexander Weimann – and a Baroque Mentorship Orchestra Program (BOMP) at UBC for students and community players,” she explained. “In addition to his own concerts in the summer festival, Alon will collaborate with these ensembles, working with professionals, students and community players, going beyond concert performances and delivering a collaborative and educational experience.
“He will also lead a three-day course called ‘Unconventional Bach,’ which focuses on playing and arranging Bach’s works for different instruments,” she said, noting, “Alon is also a composer and his guiding principle is ‘giving new life to existing material, as well as creating completely new works.’ We’re excited to have an artist in residence who shares this philosophy with EMV and will be so present beyond the concert stage.”
LeBlanc described Sariel’s Bach solos on mandolin as “captivating and very personal.”
“He fully deserves his notoriety as one of the most versatile and gifted mandolin players, lutenists and ensemble directors of today,” she said.
A soloist, chamber player and artistic director, Sariel has performed more than 1,000 concerts in more than 35 countries, according to his bio. In his Plucked Bach recordings (Pentatone), he interprets Bach’s solo music and creates new arrangements for mandolin and lute, the baroque guitar and the oud. His album Telemandolin (Berlin Classics) was awarded an OPUS KLASSIK, making Sariel the first mandolinist to earn the honour. But the path to professional success hasn’t been easy and, said Sariel, “there are still many obstacles in the way of a mandolin player.”
“For any violinist, pianist, conductor, etc., there are many competitions which could serve as a jump step to a musical career – the mandolin has none,” he explained. “I attended several competitions which were open to all instruments and won them all and, even then, I kept getting lines like, ‘Thank you very much for getting in touch, we’ll contact you shall we be interested in the future.’ Booking agencies, record labels and concert halls can still be very suspicious when it comes to the mandolin, that’s why I feel a great responsibility in every concert that I play. It’s not only about me getting re-invited, but it’s about convincing this or that director and, of course, the audience, to give a chance to something new. The theatres could always go for another Rachmaninoff piano concerto or another Beethoven symphony, they don’t have to ‘take a risk’ with a mandolin player, that’s why I really have to stand out in my artistic profile in order to get the chance.”
LeBlanc first heard about Sariel from Renaud Loranger, the artistic director of the Festival de Lanaudière in Québec. When she met Sariel at the Utrecht Early Music Festival, she said, “Our meeting was very pleasant – his playing was fabulous – and I immediately saw that he would be a great and versatile artist in residence. Also, I knew that Vancouverites love the mandolin player Avi Avital, who has played many times in Vancouver. What perhaps they don’t know is that Alon has collaborated with Avi on a recording of Vivaldi’s concerto for two mandolins (Deutsche Grammophon, 2020). I hope all mandolin lovers will come out to hear Alon – he has brought to light many works for the mandolin from centuries past and commissioned composers to write new pieces for him.”
And to think that Sariel wanted to play the electric guitar when he was a kid.
“I wished to learn e-guitar, but I was much too young for that,” he recalled. “The director of the conservatory gave me a little basic test – I had to clap some rhythms and sing some tones, etc. She suggested I should take the violin, but I wasn’t excited. Then she said there’s also the mandolin – which I didn’t know at all – and that it’s in fact ‘very similar’ to the guitar, you hold it pretty much the same way, but the size would be perfect for an 8-year-old. She mentioned the mandolin orchestra and the fact it gets to represent the city occasionally, even abroad, so I agreed to give it a try and thought I’d shift to e-guitar later on. Very soon I forgot about the guitar and was all invested in the mandolin, I absolutely loved it!”
LeBlanc chooses EMV’s artists in residence “first and foremost for their great artistry, for their extensive knowledge of historical performance practice, and their ability to share their ideas and knowledge generously,” she said. Previous artists in residence have been Cree-Métis baritone Jonathon Adams (2021); Scottish Baroque specialists David Greenberg and David McGuiness, violin and keyboard (2022); and Catalina Vicens, keyboard and curator of the Tagliavini Collection of ancient musical instruments in Bologna, Italy (2023).
“It has been extremely rewarding to watch the program grow over the past few years, and hear the enthusiastic audience feedback to our different artists in residence,” she said.
For more information about and tickets to this summer’s festival, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
Elam Rotem, founder and director of Profeti della Quinta, which plays in Vancouver Nov. 9. (photo by Theresa Pewal Photographie)
Swiss ensemble Profeti della Quinta, directed by Elam Rotem, brings Stars of the Italian Renaissance: Monteverdi & Rossi to Vancouver Nov. 9. Part of Early Music Vancouver’s 2023/24 season, the concert takes place at Christ Church Cathedral.
“Salomone Rossi and Claudio Monteverdi are two composers we like very much,” Rotem told the Independent. “We find the fact that they were colleagues – they played together as instrumentalists and collaborated as composers – very interesting. Even more interesting is the fact that the Jewish singers and musicians in Mantua had this double musical life, where sometimes they sang madrigals and participated in the opera productions at the court (collaborating with Monteverdi and other non-Jewish musicians) and, at other times they sang Hebrew polyphony in the synagogue.
“In this program,” said Rotem, “we follow in the footsteps of those Jewish musicians from Mantua who, unlike Jews in other places (in Italy or elsewhere), participated in the arts. This particular constellation allowed Salomone Rossi to develop his polyphonic music for the synagogue, and it is also the reason why, despite the hopes of Rossi and his followers, this tradition never took off elsewhere.”
Rotem – who was born in Sdot Yam, Israel – has a bachelor’s in harpsichord from the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, and he came to Basel, Switzerland, at the end of 2008 to specialize in early music at Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, from where he received his doctorate in a joint program with the University of Würzburg, in Germany. His PhD thesis was on early basso continuo practice.
“Throughout the 16th century, music was primarily polyphonic – typically composed of four to five parts. Towards the end of the century,” he explained, “new ideas led to the development of a new technique in which only two parts were composed: a vocal part and a basso continuo part – an instrumental bass line on which the player had to fill in the harmonies above it. The possibility of having only one singing voice allowed a much more direct and expressive communication with the audience and played an important role in the creation of early operas. The difference between the older polyphony and the new monodic style is so great that it changed the course of music history, and some examples of this will be heard in our concert.”
The origins of Profeti della Quinta go back to Rotem’s studies at Kibbutz Kabri High School, where he organized a vocal quintet with fellow students. Rotem is also a singer.
“I started Profeti in the corridors of my high school, wherever we could find some church-like acoustics” he said, “but the group only became professional after we won the York Early Music Competition in 2011.”
The ensemble now performs throughout Europe, North America, Israel and elsewhere. Focusing on the vocal repertoire of the 16th and early 17th centuries, the group “aims to create vivid and expressive performances for audiences today while, at the same time, considering period performance practices.”
About how he approaches this dual goal, Rotem said, “First and foremost, I’m interested in music from the period that I find interesting and beautiful. Then, I’m also interested in how it was performed and in what context – and, for that, you have to research and try things out. For example, we sing from (copies of) original partbooks and not from modern scores, so each singer has only his or her own line. This makes listening and making music very different. Then we also try to understand the music better. Finding out the motivations behind the decisions of composers, we feel that we can deliver their music better.”
In response to a question about how Rossi’s music is perceived with regard to its Jewishness – including his liturgical compositions – Rotem said, “It depends on what people mean by ‘Jewish music.’ If, for some people, Jewish music means Eastern European klezmer music, then Rossi’s music doesn’t sound Jewish. Rossi’s music is written in the language of his time – what we can categorize (if we must) as late Renaissance Italian style. If we compare the music of his prayers, for example, with the contemporary love madrigals (also his own), we see that the prayers are more solemn and simpler. But this is hardly surprising – the way composers created their music was based on the text, and so a heart-wrenching madrigal text would be composed in a very different way than a psalm praising the Lord. Another way to look at Rossi’s prayers is not so much as pieces of music in the normal sense, but simply the text of the prayers served on a plate of harmony – with the goal of elevating and glorifying the prayer.”
Joining Rotem (bass vocals, harpsichord and musical direction) from Profeti della Quinta on the Western Canadian tour that will take the musicians to Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary, are Doron Schleifer (countertenor), Andrea Gavagnin (countertenor), Lior Leibovici (tenor), Loïc Paulin (tenor) and Ori Harmelin (chitarrone, which is a kind of lute). After the concert in Vancouver, there will be a talk and Q&A with Rotem, hosted by Suzie LeBlanc, artistic and executive director of Early Music Vancouver.
For tickets to the performance on Nov. 9, 7:30 p.m., at Christ Church Cathedral, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
Artist-in-residence David Greenberg has multiple performances at this year’s Vancouver Bach Festival: Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions. (photo by J.B. Millot)
Violinist David Greenberg teaches a course called Cape Breton-Baroque Integration, which is “devoted to creating living moments on the violin through the art of ‘keeping it swirly.’” He keeps it swirly by a range of techniques, but the intangible part derives from his love of Baroque and Cape Breton music.
Greenberg is co-artist-in-residence at Early Music Vancouver this year along with David McGuinness, and the pair will play in a few performances as part of this summer’s Vancouver Bach Festival: Scottish Baroque and Other Traditions, which takes place July 26 to Aug. 6 at various venues in Vancouver.
Early Music Vancouver’s artists-in-residence program started last summer, with Cree-Métis Two-Spirit baritone Jonathon Adams. The program was initiated by EMV artistic and executive director Suzie LeBlanc “to honour Canada’s diverse heritages while at the same time exploring the convergences between ‘world music’ and early music.” Greenberg came to be an artist-in-residence through his connection to LeBlanc, who is an interdisciplinary artist – he has performed with her many times over the years.
“Many of those collaborations involved a degree of integration between folk and Baroque music,” Greenberg told the Independent. “Often, those collaborations included David McGuinness, who is also a close friend and colleague from Glasgow, a scholar of 18th-century Scottish music, a brilliant musician on various keyboard instruments and the founder and director of Concerto Caledonia.
“David and I have worked together for over 20 years,” said Greenberg, “mostly on projects that involve some degree of Baroque-traditional stylistic integration. Suzie asked David and me to be co-artists-in-residence for the 2022 festival since this year’s theme is the integration of Baroque and Scottish traditional music.
“Over the two-week festival … David and I will perform solo, chamber and orchestral concerts. We will also coach young musicians and perform with BOMP (Baroque Orchestra Mentorship Program) as part of our activities.”
Greenberg was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Maryland. He lived in Canada for 30 years, but is currently living in Corvallis, Ore.
A graduate of Indiana University’s Early Music Institute, he has performed, taught and recorded in multiple places around the world, but mainly in North America and Western Europe. In addition to LeBlanc, he has performed with more than a dozen groups and performers, and been a guest soloist and/or director with several orchestras. Between these collaborations and his own ensemble Puirt a Baroque (pronounced poorsht-a-baroque, and meaning tunes from the Baroque), he has recorded more than 80 CDs. As well, he is a composer and arranger, and he co-authored Traditional Celtic Violin Music of Cape Breton: The DunGreen Collection with Kate Dunlay.
“I started playing at age 4, dabbled in both classical music and traditional folk fiddle as a kid, went to conservatory and got depressed, switched over to Early Music performance, which suited my temperament better, and joined Tafelmusik (Toronto-based Baroque orchestra) for a decade in the ’90s,” said Greenberg.
“Alongside my Baroque playing, I dove into learning the Cape Breton fiddle style, started a few bands, worked with many colleagues around the world…. The combination of the Baroque and Cape Breton musical languages is where my sense of 18th-century Scottish violin music comes from. Italian and Scottish composers are connected by way of some Italians living and working in Scotland in the 18th century, resulting in an inevitable mixing of the styles, though to what degree is a matter of opinion.”
He said the fun thing about the Baroque and Cape Breton styles “is how their esthetic hierarchies are totally different. So that means they work as effective comic relief for each other! Cape Breton music is basically the continued, naturally evolving, living tradition of 18th-century Scottish Highland fiddling. A strange fact is that Baroque music was popular in Scotland about 50 years beyond when it died out in continental Europe. That means that the Scottish traditional music and Scottish Baroque music coexisted side-by-side in 18th-century Scotland, including many examples of music that lie somewhere between the two styles.”
Greenberg plays a Baroque-style violin made in 2000 by Masa Inokuchi in Toronto. He said, “Cape Breton music is played on a modern fiddle these days, but it works on a Baroque fiddle within the appropriate context.”
And as for a little more context on Greenberg and his musical range, he shared, “My mom has always loved singing Yiddish songs and accompanying herself on the piano. I enjoy backing her up on fiddle when I visit her.”
For tickets go to the Vancouver Bach Festival, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
Byron Schenkman performs in the concert called Chopin Preludes on Aug. 1 at Christ Church Cathedral. (photo from Byron Schenkman)
“I think Chopin was an exceptionally sensitive pianist and composer – more of a poet than most. Sometimes his music is almost painfully beautiful. And, these days, I think we need all the poetry and beauty and sensitivity we can find!” Byron Schenkman told the Independent.
Schenkman returns to the Vancouver Bach Festival this year. Presented by Early Music Vancouver, they will perform preludes by Frédéric Chopin on Early Music’s 19th-century Broadwood fortepiano on Aug. 1, 1 p.m., with a pre-concert talk at 12:15 p.m., at Christ Church Cathedral.
The concert is a collaboration with the Vancouver Chopin Society. Describing Chopin as “a central figure of 19th-century Romanticism,” the program summary notes that “his connections to Bach are clear in his own preludes, which were directly inspired by Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.” To place “Chopin’s music in the context of Romantic composers who influenced his work,” Schenkman’s performance will include pieces by Maria Szymanowska, Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms.
Of playing Chopin, Schenkman said, “I think the biggest challenge – and the greatest joy – is honouring the delicacy of Chopin’s music even when it is intellectually complex and emotionally very deep. Compared with performing most other composers’ work, it’s like creating art out of glass instead of marble or bronze.”
Schenkman performs on piano, harpsichord and fortepiano, which is, simply, a piano made in the 18th and early 19th century. They also have contributed to more than 40 CDs, including some on which they have played on historical instruments from the National Music Museum, in Vermillion, S.D., and from the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston. The award-winning musician is a founding member of several ensembles, and teaches music history at Seattle University, as well as being a guest lecturer on the harpsichord and fortepiano at other institutions. In 2013, they launched Byron Schenkman & Friends, a Baroque and classical chamber music series in Seattle.
A graduate of the New England Conservatory and Indiana University, Schenkman said, “I grew up in a home with lots of music. I often heard one of my older sisters practising the piano and it is still a very comforting sound for me, especially the repertoire that she practised most: Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Chopin.”
In past Bach Festivals, Schenkman has performed Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn and Ignaz Moscheles.
“I am really happy to be returning to Vancouver, one of my favourite cities,” they said. “And I am honoured to be part of the wonderful Vancouver Bach Festival along with so many inspiring colleagues.”
This year’s 14-concert festival, which runs July 30 to Aug. 9, begins with EMV’s ensemble-in-residence, Les Boréades, in a performance over two nights – July 30 and 31 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts – of Bach’s Complete Brandenburg Concertos. It also closes at the Chan Centre – with Henry Purcell’s Hail Bright Cecilia – but the other concerts take place at Christ Church. For tickets and more information, visit earlymusic.bc.ca or call 604-822-2697.
Profeti della Quinta is at Vancouver Playhouse on Feb. 2. (photo by Susanna Drescher)
The documentary Hebreo: The Search for Salomone Rossi (Joseph Rochlitz, 2012) introduced last year’s Vancouver International Film Festival audiences to Profeti della Quinta, a Switzerland-based Renaissance and early Baroque vocal ensemble, primarily composed of Israelis. It followed the quintet to the Italian town of Mantua, the birthplace of Salomone Rossi, the first-known – and elusive – early-17th-century composer of Jewish music, who also was “one of the most renowned composers and performers at the court of the Gonzaga dukes.” The film’s audiences were treated to the ensemble’s musical preparations ahead of their concert of Rossi’s works at the Palazzo Te, where his music might have originally been performed, as well as by illuminating commentary from historians and musicologists on Rossi’s music and its impact.
On a North American tour to support their latest recording, Il Mantovano Hebreo, featuring Italian madrigals and Hebrew prayers by Rossi, Profeti della Quinta is in Vancouver Feb. 2, presented by Early Music Vancouver at Vancouver Playhouse. The first half of the program includes a screening of the 45-minute 2012 documentary; the program continues with the live performance of Rossi’s music. Members of the ensemble appearing in the Vancouver recital include Doron Schleifer and David Feldman, cantus; Lior Leibovici and Dan Dunkelblum, tenor; Elam Roten, bass and musical direction; and Orí Harmelin, chitarrone (a large bass lute).
Rotem, the ensemble’s music director, who also composes and plays the harpsichord in addition to the bass, spoke with the Independent about the quintet’s newest release, the experience of making the film, and their upcoming recording Rappresentatione Di Giuseppe E I Suoi Fratelli(Joseph and His Brethren), a “musical drama in three acts sung in biblical Hebrew,” Rotem’s composition for the ensemble set to be released in March.
Jewish Independent: When and how was Profeti della Quinta established?
Elam Rotem: Profeti della Quinta started while I was still in high school. Around the age of 17, I fell in love with vocal music, and especially the music of the 16th and 17th centuries. It was shortly after that I collected some of my friends and started singing Latin motets in the corridors of the school. The early sacred music that we were singing was a very odd element in an Israeli kibbutz school, but I think that our fellow students liked it.
Later, we were lucky to add Doron Schleifer, who can sing perfectly the soprano lines of 16th-century music and has a most beautiful and unique voice color, different from any other countertenor I know. After a pause, when I was in the army, I studied music in Jerusalem and then joined Doron in Basel in the schola cantorum – one of the best schools specializing in early music. There, we found new colleagues. Not so surprisingly, most of them are from Israel, too. (In this particular tour, we are all Israelis, but in others, it’s not always the case.)
JI: Can you talk about the experience of making that film about Salomone Rossi and what it was like, ultimately, to play his music at the palazzo?
Profeti della Quinta performs the music of Salomone Rossi.
ER: It should be noted that we are definitely not the first to sing and play Rossi’s music – not at all. His Hebrew sacred music is quite common in Israeli choirs’ repertoire, and was also performed and recorded in America. Rossi’s instrumental music is played in many concerts of 17th-century music. However, with our historically informed performance approach, we try to get closer as much as possible (and this is not simple) to the way Rossi’s music may have been performed in his time. Our special combination of knowledge in early music and in Hebrew allows us to read Rossi’s Hebrew music in its original notation (this is something worth seeing and we welcome people after the concert to have a look in the scores).
Moreover, in our new album, Il Mantovano Hebreo, we shed light on Rossi’s most neglected repertoire – his beautiful Italian madrigals. Singing in the palaces of Mantova [Mantua] where Rossi worked 400 years ago was an amazing experience for us. We look forward to further experiences like that in Italy!
JI: Can you speak to what role, if any, music plays in “illustrating” Jewish history?
ER: As far as I understand, the Hebrew music of Rossi is a very local phenomenon that probably stopped not much after its creation, probably around Rossi’s death (circa 1630). Other compositions in Hebrew came up only much later in music history, and not in Italy. However, this was a very interesting point in history – a Jewish musician succeeds in breaking the barriers of society, becomes successful and accepted, and then goes back to his own community and tries to revolutionize the music of the synagogue. In Rossi’s own words, to share with God the talents that were given to him.
JI: There seems to be a movement to work to “uncover history” through performing the work of composers who were (or nearly were) “erased” by history. Can you comment on the experience and responsibility of performing “neglected” music? How does Profeti della Quinta approach this enterprise? How do you make this music accessible to contemporary audiences?
ER: Profeti della Quinta are privileged to be (at least) the third generation of the “early music movement.” However, we believe that if music is “only” forgotten, that alone is not a good enough reason to bring it to life. We believe in good music, and when we find such good music, we want to share it with others. This was exactly the case with Rossi’s Italian madrigals. The purpose of music in the early 17th century was to move the listeners, and this is exactly our aim, as well.
JI: Profeti della Quinta achieves “vivid and expressive” performances by “addressing the performance practices of the time.” Can you explain a little bit more about that approach? Do you try to recreate an experience or to create something entirely new?
ER: This is an important point – it is not possible to recreate early music exactly the way it was done. This is simply because we cannot know fully how it was done. However, there are many things we can do. We strive to understand the compositions better (historical counterpoint and composition techniques), to understand the way music was performed (historical notation, ornamentation practices) and, as much as we can, also the social context and the meaning the music had in the time of its use. Nevertheless, we are aware that what we are doing is a new creation, mainly inspired by the past.
JI: What are some of the challenges of your dual role as music director of the quintet, as well as being one of the musicians?
ER: This is, in fact, quite simple: Before the concert I’m the musical director, but during the concerts I’m one of the performers. The concerts are the easy and fun part!
JI: I’m curious about your composition about Joseph and his brothers. Can you describe what it’s like to compose in Hebrew, while “using the musical language and context” of Italian Renaissance composers? Mazal tov on the recording’s upcoming release!
ER: Thanks, we are all very excited about the coming release of Rappresentatione Di Giuseppe E I Suoi Fratelli (Joseph and His Brethren). Concerning the language, I merely followed Rossi’s footsteps. He was the first to use the Hebrew language within the Christian musical language of his day. For Joseph and His Brethren, I also used the musical language of the early 17th century but with a focus on the newly invented dramatic genre – the opera. It’s a Hebrew Orfeo, if you like! (I intentionally don’t say “Jewish”; the Old Testament’s stories belong to whole of the Western culture. Luckily for me, it’s my mother tongue in which it was originally written, and I’m excited to share it.)
JI: Many leading Israeli classical musicians leave Israel for Europe. How difficult is it to achieve an international reputation while based in Israel? Do any of you participate in the Israeli expat community in Europe?
ER: This is a difficult question. Being in the middle of Europe makes … traveling around relatively easy, and this economical aspect is crucial today. For example, we performed in the U.K. only once, after … winning in the York competitions. We got several calls, but none of the organizers were able to pay the travel [costs]. The situation would have been much more difficult if we were coming every time from Israel.
JI: Your February concert with Early Music Vancouver will be paired with a screening of the documentary film. What’s it like to perform alongside yourselves, as it were?
ER: We love performing next to the screening of the film. The audience actually knows what [they are listening to] and, therefore, enjoys and is moved much more from our performance. It is related to what “early music” is – the more you understand the context, the stronger your experience is. We are looking forward very much to this tour!
Profeti della Quinta is in Vancouver, Feb. 2, 3 p.m., at the Playhouse; there is a pre-show chat at 2:15 p.m. Early Music Vancouver has recently introduced half-price tickets for concert-goers 35 years of age or younger, and rush seats for students with valid ID are $10 at the door. For information and tickets, visit earlymusic.bc.ca.
