BY KIRSTEN BOLTON
For ArtSpring
Freshly back from the holidays, ArtSpring Presents’ first January performance is the always popular Victoria Baroque with a much-anticipated matinee concert on Saturday, Jan. 18.
Its afternoon timing is part of the season’s concerted effort to facilitate more daytime programming for audiences in dark winter months.
The ensemble is joined by baroque violinist and master Cape Breton folk fiddler David Greenberg for The Phantasm, a repertoire exploring sweet sleep, dreams and things that go bump in the night. With selections from Purcell’s incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Vivaldi’s flute concerto La Notte, arrangements of Celtic folk songs and other night-themed music, the concert promises to be a lively intersection of classical and traditional music.
For over three decades, Greenberg has enjoyed a double career as violinist and fiddler. His fluency and experience in these two genres make him uniquely qualified to interpret the wild music of 18th-century Scotland, which will be highlighted in Saturday’s performance.
He has performed, taught and recorded across North America and Western Europe, as well as in Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. Recording over 80 CDs with industry collaborators, Greenberg also has three groundbreaking Scottish-Cape Breton-baroque recordings with his own ensemble and co-authored The DunGreen Collection, an influential treatise on Cape Breton fiddling.
An accomplished composer and arranger, many of his tunes have been recorded by Cape Breton musicians such as Buddy MacMaster, Carl MacKenzie, Jerry Holland and The Rankins.
Founded in 2011 by Finnish-born baroque flutist Soile Stratkauskas, Victoria Baroque inspires Vancouver Island and area audiences with dynamic, personal live performances of baroque- and classical-era music playing instruments of the 18th century to immerse people in the soundscape of the time.
It is said the mellower tones of the baroque instruments — gut strings on string instruments, shorter bows, mellifluous wooden flutes, oboes and bassoons with fewer keys and natural horns without valves — respond in a more intimate, conversational manner than their modern equivalents.
The group collaborates with other early music guest specialists from Pacific Opera, Cowichan Symphony Society and artists from across the country and the U.K.
Tickets are now on sale for $35, with $5 youth and $15 Theatre Angel prices also available.