Christmas tunes yule love to rediscover
Vancouver’s musical movers and shakers share their festive sonic traditions
For Vancouver musicians, December is an impossibly busy time of year with extra shows galore on top of all the other holiday distractions. Come the actual holidays, there must be a strong temptation to take a few days away from music and music making.
Well, maybe not. In the spirit of inquiring minds wanting to know, here’s what a sample of Vancouver’s musical movers and shakers may have on their personal playlists for the holidays.
Kinza Tyrrell, Vancouver Opera’s principal répétiteur and assistant conductor, is busy up until the very last minute with performances of The Nutcracker. She frankly admits that with all the music in her working life, home and holidays are a time to get away from all those notes, but she does confess to turning on country and western music when she’s driving.
John Korsrud, composer and founder of the Hard Rubber Orchestra, has been on a pre-holiday retreat at the Banff Centre working on a number of projects, including a gig at the VSO New Music Festival in mid-January. He anticipates his holiday listening will include music by Winnipeg-based “electronica guy Aaron Funk, better known as Venetian Snares.” Since Korsrud is enthralled with the music of Ravel at the moment, La Valse will probably make his list, too.
At the Vancouver Recital Society, Leila Getz is still in recovery mode from the grand (and complicated) Joyce Di Donato affair, which ended the society’s fall offerings with one of the more unique concert events in recent memory. When I asked what she had planned, Getz said: “There has been this box of CDs by Radu Lupu sitting on my desk for months. I think this may be the time to get around to listening to them.”
Ian Hampton, founding cellist of the Purcell Quartet and the central force behind the Langley Community Music School, is never at a loss for listening projects. He’s planning to go through “the piano sonatas of Prokofiev, Henri Dutilleux’s Second Symphony Le Double for interplay between a large and a chamber orchestra and a return to an old love, Sibelius’s symphonies — particularly No. 6, the one I have never played.”
Elektra Women’s Choir artistic director Morna Edmundston got her ensemble’s seasonal concert over good and early. As she explained to me years ago, the idea of Advent as preparation resonates especially well for women. So what will accompany her few days of holiday downtime with family? “For making all snowy car trips fun, Ella Fitzgerald’s 12 Nights in Hollywood. At home decorating the tree, Rita Costanzi’s Christmas CD Pastorales de Noël.”
When the Vancouver Bach Choir’s Leslie Dala is at home for the holidays, “I usually have CBC Radio on, but I do have Michael Buble’s holiday album. And one obligatory song is the Little Drummer Boy with Bing Crosby and David Bowie.”
Early Music Vancouver’s Matthew White was responsible for one of the very last super-big classical events right before the holidays started in earnest; this year Bach’s Magnificat was on offer last Sunday with earlier performances in Oregon, Washington and Vancouver Island. For family listening, he has a traditional favourite of another variety: A John Denver Christmas album (Denver made seven).
And myself? A few weeks ago, I heard a wonderful new performance from Daniel Taylor’s latest Christmas album The Tree of Life, which features Elizabeth Poston’s Jesus Christ The Apple Tree carol. I suspect I’ll give it another listen before Boxing Day.