Back to Bach
Ottawa choir scores Canadian first with 2014 appearance at Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany
To stand inside the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, Germany, is nice to do if you are a tourist. But to sing inside it is special. And to sing the music of Johann Sebastian Bach inside it is to touch the soul of genius. Bach was the kapellmeister in the church from 1723 to his death in 1750. And much of the music he composed for Sunday services, he played on the organ in that church.
That is the very fortunate circumstance awaiting the Ottawa Bach Choir next spring, when they will become the first Canadian choir to take part in the prestigious annual Bach Festival in Leipzig.
They will perform June 20. In addition to the appearance in Leipzig, the choir will also perform in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice and Lübeck, Germany, along with Groningen and Amsterdam in The Netherlands. The tour lasts from June 13 to 26. The road to the festival begins Saturday with the choir’s first concert of its subscription season. There will be two more.
The 8 p.m. show Saturday will include the Bach Cantata, Meine Seel erhebt den Herren BWV 10, along with pieces by Buxtehude (who was an organist in Lübeck) and Charpentier. Accompanying the choir on Nov. 30 is Montreal’s Baroque orchestra Ensemble Caprice.
The choir is also singing in a benefit concert on Dec. 21 at 7 p.m. at the McGarry Family Chapels, Central Chapel, 315 McLeod St. (For information on tickets, ottawabachchoir.ca).
The Ottawa Bach Choir is a professional chamber ensemble of about 25 singers. It was founded in 2002 by Lisette Canton, who is also a professor of choral music at York University and spends a lot of time on the road from her Ottawa home.
The choir performs music from all periods, but it has a special fondness for the music of the baroque and for Bach in particular, Canton said.
“Bach is the only one who fuses the musical, the intellectual, the emotional and the spiritual. Nobody does it quite like Bach.”
The choir has been to Leipzig before and travelled extensively in Europe and performed in some “big” places like St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and Carnegie Hall in 2011.
In fact, the choir was invited to Bachfest in 2009 but couldn’t make it work.
The choir has done all of Bach’s choral works, but they do other more obscure works as well.
The Leipzig event is the biggest festival of Bach’s music in the world and the invitation and performance is a “big deal” for the choir, Canton said.
“The fact that we’ve been singing there three times before,” helps, she said. The calibre of performers invited is high. For example, the famous baroque ensemble Tafelmusik is appearing next year as well. And the expectations for the choir are high, too.
‘Bach is the only one who fuses the musical, the intellectual, the emotional and the spiritual.’
LISETTE CANTON Ottawa Bach Choir founder
“When you do Bach over there, it better darn well be good because they are used to hearing it all the time.
“It has to be in the right style, it has to have the right sound and colour in the way all the early music groups around the world are performing it.”
The appeal of Baroque music is enduring, Canton says. Layers and textures and the driving rhythm of the style really can draw in audiences, she added.
“You really have to be an instrument with this music, like a violin, you are really hopping all over the place.”
The other part of the music that is so attractive is the symbolism it conveys.
“Everything Bach does is based on some kind of spiritual meaning” and when period instruments are added, the experience is heightened, she says. Hence the Saturday performance with Ensemble Caprice.
In the end, the music succeeds because it is “joyous,” Canton says.
“What I have come to for me is just the artistic and spiritual expression through the music.”