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Holy Rosary Cathedral’s own musicians: organist Denis Bédard and the Cathedral Choir, assistant organist Catherine Walsh and the Holy Rosary Women’s Choir, the Contemporary Choir with director Chito Lacsina, and the Spanish Mass Choir with director Ricardo Chaparro-Pacheco.  Entry by donation.

Presented by Quest University.

Csaba Király (1965) graduated at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest as performing artist in 1989 (organ), and in 1990 (piano). During his student years he won first prize in all national competitions organized for his age group. He was also the first prize winner at the International Piano Competition in Cagliari 1996 (Italy) and in New Orleans 1997  (USA). Since his student years he has given concerts regularly both as pianist and organist and his exceptional talents have made him a popular young artist. Beyond his recitals in Hungary, he has had concert engagements in nearly all European countries, winning great success in United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, China,Egypt and India. His repertoire covers a wide range from the Baroque to contemporary music. Besides performing works by Bach, Beethoven, Liszt and Bartok, performing the latest modern compositions plays a prominent role in his concert programmes. A characteristic aspect of his repertoire is improvisation. He has obtained the basic knowledge of improvising from his music school teacher Maria Apagyi, as an active student of the Artistic Workshop in Komlo. He approaches music as a composer, which is proved by his numerous arrangements. He has made a significant number of organ transcriptions of orchestral and choral works, which he often plays not only in Hungary, but in countries from Western Europe to Japan, China, South Korea and the United States. Csaba Király is attracted towards great missions and challenges, which gives him free energy for his creative work. Several times he has performed Liszt’s and Bach’s complete organ works. Since 2001 he has been undertaking a huge series of 100 concerts, lasting some years, of the complete piano music of Liszt. His piano-organ CD of Liszt: B-A-C-H Prelude and Fugue, B-A-C-H Fantasia and Fugue, “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” Variations was awarded“Classic CD of the Year 2001” in Hungary (Gramofon-prize). In 2003 he has been awarded a Liszt Ferenc prize for his artistic activity. In 2005 he established the First Pécs International Piano Competition in memory of Liszt Ferenc, in which he was one of the jury members. In 2004 he has been elected as the Secretary-general, in 2013 as the president of the Liszt Ferenc Society. As a piano teacher he has taught several years at the Academy of Music in Budapest. Between 1997and 1998 he was a guest organ teacher at the Taegu-Hyosung University in South Korea. Since 2002 he has been the head of the Piano Department, currently he teaches as associate piano and organ professor in the Institute of Music of the Musical and Visual Art Faculty at the University of Pécs and from the year of 2014 he is the director of the Béla Bartók Memorial House in Budapest. 

Works ranging from J.S. Bach to the present, including Louis Vierne’s famous Carillon de Westminster and music by Denis Bedard, with a special emphasis on contemporary American composers.  One of the organ world’s brightest rising stars, Christian Lane earned first prize in four major American organ competitions before reaching his twenty-first birthday and performs regularly throughout the US and Europe.

“To win the competition requires musicality, coordination, dexterity, virtuosity and good programming…  The $25,000 first-prize winner, American Christian Lane, assistant university organist at Harvard, demonstrated exactly that, with a varied repertoire that made full use of the spectrum of possible sound.”  Montreal Gazette

“If Christian Lane is an example of the future of our instrument, not only will he bring new converts to it, but the panache, vitality and joy with which he plays may just show people how musical the instrument truly is capable of being!” Organ Canada magazine

Performance visible on a giant screen at the front of the Cathedral.

Tickets available at the door, at the Cathedral Office (646 Richards) and by phone: 604 682 6774

Ciacona in d minor – Pachelbel
Trivium – Arvo Part
Ich ruf’ zu dir – J.S. Bach
Le Jardin suspendu – Jehan Alain
Premonition – Jocelyn Morlock
Northwest Drift – Anthony Genge
Litanies – Jehan Alain
Prelude et Fugue sur le nom d’Alain – Maurice Duruflé

Cecil B. DeMille’s 1927 blockbuster masterpiece on the life and Passion of Christ, including scenes in technicolor, and accompanied by eminent Vancouver organist Edward Norman, who in addition to an international concert career, is now in demand playing for silent movies in Canada and the US.

Tickets available at the door, at the Cathedral Office (646 Richards) and by phone: 604 682 6774

Carillon (1990) – William Mathias
The Casavant Diptych (2004) “In mystery and wonder” – Dan Locklair
Prelude and fugue in D (BWV 532) – J.S. Bach
“Hilf, Herr meines Lebens” (2007) (arr. Jürgen Rehberg) – Hans Puls
Great Train Robbery – Movie Improvisation
Mars (from ‘Planets’ Suite) (arr. Wills) – Gustav Holst
Dance of the Flowers (‘Nutcracker’ Suite) (arr. Goss-Custard) – Pyotr Tchaikovsky
“La Cathédrale Engloutie” (from ‘Preludes’) (transcribed Léon Roques) – Claude Debussy
Sabre Dance (from “Gayenah”) – Aram Khahchaturian

Featuring transcriptions of works by Handel, Schubert and Marcello, and new works by Denis Bédard.  Vancouver saxophone virtuoso Julia Nolan is an active concert artist, who has performed in Europe and Asia and as a soloist with the VSO.  Performance visible on a giant screen at the front of the Cathedral.

Tickets available at the door, at the Cathedral Office (646 Richards) and by phone: 604 682 6774

Fraser Valley Organ Crawl. 1:00p.m.  – approximately 6:00p.m.  Starting at Good Shepherd Catholic Church  in White Rock, followed by Maranatha Canadian Reformed Church in Surrey, and ending at Langley Canadian Reformed Church.  More details to come soon.

With a reception after the concert.  More details to follow at a later date.

Programme:
The War March of the Priests – from Athalie                    Felix Mendelssohn

Prelude and Fugue in C major – BWV 531                Johann Sebastian Bach

The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba – from Solomon   George Frederick  Handel

Aria –  Angels ever bright and fair – from Theodora    George Frederick Handel

Variations on a theme of Corelli                                       Christian Rinck

Interval

Grand March – from Tannhauser                                       Richard Wagner

Aria – Dich, teure Halle – from Tannhauser                         Richard Wagner

Larghetto from Clarinet Quintet                         Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Song – The Lost Chord                                                     Sir Arthur Sullivan

Sortie                                                                             Louis Lefébure-Wély

John Mitchell, was born and raised in North Vancouver. His first organ lessons were at St. Andrew’s United Church with Alan Thompson, who was organist of Ryerson Church in the 1930’s. He played his first services  at the age of fourteen, and at seventeen became assistant organist at West Vancouver United.  He continued studies with David Rogers at Central Presbyterian, and with Frederick Carter at St. John’s, Shaughnessy.
At age twenty one he became an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, and two years later became a Fellow (FRCCO) – on both occasions receiving the Willan Prize for highest marks in the exams.

In 1973 he played the dedication recital after a limited restoration of the 1900 Karn Warren organ of Holy Rosary Cathedral, and became organist there for three years. He was then appointed organist and choirmaster of St. Mary’s Anglican Church, Kerrisdale. He is now freelancing as an organist, and has frequently assisted with the music programme of Ryerson United. He has performed recitals throughout western Canada, and in England. In 2000 he was the first Vancouver organist to give a recital at Holy Rosary Cathedral after the organ was restored and enlarged by Casavant Frères. He has since played three more recitals there.

At UBC he studied voice with Donald Brown, and later privately with Luigi Wood. He combined a career as a baritone with his organ career, first as a founding member of the Gallery Singers, then for eight years in the Vancouver Chamber Choir. He made his debut as a soloist with Vancouver Opera in 1983, performing roles in La Traviata, Carmen, and Madama Butterfly. That same year he was appointed chorusmaster of Edmonton Opera, where for ten years he also coached, conducted and sang over twenty five supporting roles. He was a regular soloist with the Alberta Baroque Ensemble, and also was a soloist with Pro Coro and the Richard Eaton Singers.

A highlight of his singing career was being invited by the Alberta government to sing ‘O Canada’ at a state luncheon for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, who afterwards graciously thanked him and had a little chat about the good acoustics in Government House.

In Edmonton he was organist for a massed service for the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had no comments to make about the acoustics of the local ‘cow palace’!

Sheila Christie, soprano

Dramatic soprano Sheila Christie most recently appeared with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem under the baton of maestro Bramwell Tovey. For the 2013/2014 season, Sheila was chosen to be the sole soprano in Vancouver Opera’s Yulanda M. Faris Young Artist Program. As a member of that program, she performed the title character in Gustav Holst’s Savitri and covered four mainstage roles including, Tosca (Tosca), Lady Billows (Albert Herring), Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), and Elisabetta (Don Carlo). Further credits include, the High Priestess in Aida and Giovanna in Rigoletto with Vancouver Opera, Hanna Glawari in The Merry Widow with Burnaby Lyric Opera, Marguerite in Faust with the Usti nad Labem City Opera, soprano soloist in Faure’s Requiem with the Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra, and soprano soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Vancouver Philharmonic Orchestra. Sheila is a long-standing member of the Vancouver Opera Chorus and has also been seen performing in Vancouver Opera’s community events to promote numerous operas including: Madama Butterfly, Macbeth, Aida, Tosca, Don Giovanni, and Don Carlo.

Sheila holds a Master of Music degree in Opera Performance from the University of British Columbia. She was semi-finalist in The Third Annual China (Ningbo) International Vocal Competition and received an Encouragement Award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She was recently awarded the Vancouver Opera Guild’s grant for a promising BC singer, a VOCE grant, and the Joe Boxer Memorial Fund Award from Vancouver Opera.

In addition to her performing career, Sheila is a member of the musical theatre faculty at the Richmond Academy of Dance and offers private vocal instruction.