A BAROQUE CHRISTMAS
Trotter back with baton
Over the years Jon Washburn’s Vancouver Chamber Choir has tried a number of strategies to provide choral repertoire for seasonal needs.
It’s had considerable success with Charlie Brown Christmas and Dylan Thomas Christmas projects, and this year the emphasis is on a big show at the Orpheum.
A Baroque Christmas will feature a return to Vancouver by conductor John William Trotter, who conducted the choir’s cadet ensemble, the Pacifica Singers, before going on to a U.S. college job.
When Postmedia News spoke with him last week, Trotter had just arrived in Vancouver, but still made time to check in and tell us what has he been up to since leaving. It turns out he has been up to quite a bit as associate professor of music at the Wheaton College Conservatory and principal music director of the professional
ensemble Chicago a cappella.
“Wheaton is a town and a college, one of maybe 200 towns that make up Chicagoland. (It is) part of that big amoeba,” Trotter explains. “Wheaton has a Conservatory of Music whose students come from everywhere. They are both talented and respectful, where normally you only get one of those two.”
Despite relocation to Illinois, Trotter has not severed his local connections.
“I’m certainly a West Coast life form. We come back to Vancouver every summer. And we watch with interest and alarm the rise of real estate prices.”
For his return to the Vancouver Chamber Choir organization Trotter will conduct an inclusive evening of music. The art of putting together a seasonal program is a good deal more complex and intricate than it might seem on the surface, but it’s hard to go wrong with baroque repertoire this time of year. Which is just fine by Trotter.
“I love baroque music, especially — but not only — Bach. I really love how rhetorically vital it is, and how it dances. It’s really hard to beat the baroque guys’ groove, and how they start up the party.”
For an opening set Trotter has the wonderful cantata Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140, bookended with two really fierce chorales: Ehre, sei dir, Gott (from Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248) and Herr, wenn die stolzen Feinde schnauben (from BWV 248).
The second half of the program is Antonio Vivaldi’s Magnificat, RV 610/611, with Trotter’s old ensemble the Pacifica Singers joining the choir.
“The Magnificat is one of my favourite texts,” says Trotter. “Have you noticed it is only at Christmas that people talk about keeping the Christmas spirit all year long? The Magnificat is all about exalting the humble, and Vivaldi has a lot of fun with that.”
However much ensembles and audiences love the baroque, performing 18th century music makes special demands. Trotter promises committed singers, with modern instruments but a thoroughly baroque approach.
“When I was a kid, the early music stuff was starting but I knew nothing about it: a bunch of mavericks had this burning question — what would happen if we tried to do what they did? They discovered all this stuff by doing, and the sounds they created were so new and their performances so convincing, that it got taken up by the establishment. My goal is to bring this to modern ears. It’s never just a sheet of music on a page, it’s a vital experience.”
A half-dozen traditional carols round out the evening, but anticipate some innovation.
“The last set is purpose-built for these singers,” says Trotter, who is doing double duty as arranger.
“There will be some surprises about what is sung where, and some fairly unfamiliar audience participation.”