SYMPHONIC WORKS IN HOLIDAY SPIRIT
VSO prepares festive options for concertgoers
The Vancouver Symphony Orchestra seems to have more musical treats on offer for the holidays than ever before. I make it 26 events in the first 22 days of December, a staggering amount of music by any definition. Maybe next year we’ll need a VSO Advent calendar?
All those concerts amount to a great strategy. It defines the public role of the VSO as a muchloved community resource. It offers plenty of musical options for those who increasingly want to gift memorable experiences rather than things. And seasonal events will bring in a wider potential audience of all ages for conventional concerts year-round.
Two key projects support a VSO December: a classy baroque era something or other at the Chan Centre, and the long-running A Traditional Christmas shows all over Metro Vancouver.
ThisyearattheChan,it’sanall-Vivaldi affair occurring Dec. 20-21, 8 p.m., anchored of course by the ubiquitous Four Seasons quartet of concertos. However, that’s just a tiny part of the prolific composer’s work. This year, members of the orchestra will be led by Vivaldi expert (and recorder virtuoso) Federico Maria Sardelli, and as a bonus there will be some rarely heard excerpts from Vivaldi’s copious store of operas, including florid and fantastic arias sung by mezzo Krisztina Szabo.
The winning formula for A Traditional Christmas evolved decades ago. Take some seasonal instrumental music, mix with some numbers with choir (once again Morna Edmundson’s EnChor), garnish with a bit of a carol sing, and keep all the components in perfect balance through the skills of the VSO’s favourite narrator, Christopher Gaze. Performances run Dec. 10-22 at many locations (see the calendar at vancouversymphony.ca for options), but there is something new this year: renovations at downtown’s St. Andrew’s-Wesley Church have taken that evocative venue out of commission, and the VSO opted to see the change in locale as an opportunity rather than a problem, mounting two big home-base shows at the Orpheum (Dec. 22 at 4 and 7:30 p.m.). Is it the start of a fresh Traditional Christmas, er, tradition? We’ll find out next year.
Regular VSO series are stepping up to add holiday-listening options. As part of the Surrey Nights and Musically Speaking series, guest conductor Constantin Trinks offers some of the best bits from Humperdinck’s fairy tale opera Hansel and Gretel into his programs at the Bell Centre (Friday, 8 p.m.) and in the Orpheum (Saturday, also at 8 p.m.). I’ve often wondered why we don’t hear more of H&G as a regular part of our holiday options. Vancouver Opera did a severely reduced (though still charming) version a few seasons ago. Trinks, with soprano Kallie Clayton and mezzo Barb Towell, will give us the full-on Wagnerian glory of the original.
VSO’s Tiny Tots series for kids has three Holiday Hooray! shows at the VSO School’s Pyatt Hall, Dec. 6, 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m., with a further pair of performances the next day at New Westminster’s new Anvil Centre, 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. Even the Tea and Trumpets matinee series has a seasonal event, St. Petersburg in Winter, at the Orpheum (Dec. 19, 2 p.m.).
Then there are the specials. Singer Holly Cole is featured in a holiday concert at the Orpheum (Dec. 11, 8 p.m.). In a special targeted at younger folks (or perhaps sentimental older ones), Kathleen Allan conducts the VSO and members of the VSO School’s advanced string ensemble Sinfonetta in holiday-themed music with a film/music presentation of The Snowman at the heart of the program, Dec. 15, 2 p.m., in the Orpheum.
Finally, aiming to build on the successes of recent VSO film/live music events, there are two presentations of that mini-Scrooge epic Home Alone, with a spectacular score by John Williams, at the Orpheum (Dec. 18 and 20, 7 p.m.).