Vancouver Performance of 'Christmas Oratorio' to be Led by Boston Early Music Director

Early Music Vancouver (EMV) returns with its highly anticipated presentation of Christmastime cantatas, this year featuring J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio - Cantatas 1, 3, 6 on Sunday, December 21, 2014, 3pm at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at UBC. For more than 10 years, EMV has presented cantatas each December - showcasing some 35 exquisite works in that time. This season conductor, lutenist, and co-artistic director of the Boston Early Music Festival, Stephen Stubbs takes the reins and leads an accomplished group of soloists, a 28-piece Baroque orchestra, and the Early Music Vancouver Vocal Ensemble in three of the six cantatas from J.S. Bach's revered Christmas Oratorio.

"If there was ever an argument for our potential as humans, it is embodied most perfectly in J.S Bach's cantatas," says Matthew White, Artistic Director of Early Music Vancouver. "These works are a never-ending source of inspiration and happiness to anyone willing to take the time to listen, and - during a period of the year associated with rebirth and joy - it is my hope that audiences will renew their awareness of the beauty we are capable of creating and sharing with one another through this powerful music."

J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio was originally performed 280 years ago to mark the six feast days of the 1734/35 Christmas season. This concert features three of the exuberant cantatas representing Christ's birth, the adoration of the shepherds, and the adoration of the Magi. Brilliant choruses, contemplative recitatives, and expressive arias will delight audiences whether or not they are experiencing this profound music for the first time.

The musical collective of performers for this production include some of North America's most celebrated period instrumentalists and a quartet of internationally-acclaimed vocal soloists - Teresa Wakim, soprano, Krisztina Szabó, mezzo-soprano, Zachary Finkelstein, tenor, and Sumner Thompson, baritone. Instrumentation also includes trumpets, timpani, flutes, oboes, oboe d'amore, violins, viola, and continuo.

The program culminates with J.S. Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major - regarded for its reflective second movement, which was later arranged by German violinist August Wilhelm and is now famously known as Air on the G String.

This production also represents an expansion of EMV's successful, annual holiday institution as it gets set to tour beyond Vancouver to four additional Cascadia region cities - Portland, Seattle, Mercer Island, and Victoria.

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