Calendar

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.

The organ demonstrations will begin at 4:15 and 5:00 PM.  Christina Hutten will begin with some music, and then invite the audience to join her in exploring the workings of the mechanical-action organ in the side chapel at St. Andrew’s Wesley. The church’s music director, Darryl Nixon, will demonstrate the large organ in the church sanctuary.

Entry is free, though donations are welcome.  Please do not hesitate to invite friends and bring the children in your lives.

Since St. Andrew’s Wesley is such a large, beautiful space, you are invited to come to listen and to explore the church, rather than sitting solemnly in a pew for the duration of the concert.  Christina will have to do some walking herself, since she intends to perform on both the main organ and the chapel organ.  The programme will include music by Bach, Mendelssohn, Froberger, and Bruhns.

Entry is free, though donations are welcome.  Please do not hesitate to invite friends and bring the children in your lives.

Michael Dirk offers a concert to celebrate Adrian Koppejan’s Opus 20 turning 20 years at Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

(pre concert pipe-chamber projected slide-show- prepared by the Royal Canadian College of Organists –  Vancouver Center)

Concert Prelude: Sinfonia from Cantata No 29 – JS Bach/arr Dupre (1731)
Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir (We thank you, God, we thank you) – Psalm 75
(based on Bach’s Violin Partita No 3)

Opening hymn – All Creatures of our God and King – St Francis of Assisi/Psalm148/Friedrich Spee (1225/1623)

Tribute to the Dutch origins of the commissioner and organ builder:
Ballo del Granduca – Petr Sweelinck (1589)

Tribute to the inaugural concert October, 1995 (Darryl Nixon, organist)
Prelude and Fugue in F – Darryl Nixon (1995)

<<Stella Maris Choir: Freedom Trilogy – Paul Halley (1994)>>

Tribute to Fr Galvon and Fr Dion
Variations sur «Nous chanterons pour toi, Seigneur» (“The Old Hundredth”) – Denis Bedard (1995)

Closing Hymn – Now Thank We All Our God – Rinkark/Crüger (1636/1647)

Concert Postlude – Carillon de Westminster – Louis Vierne (1927)

Trumpeters Katherine Evans and Christopher Robertson will present a programme of music for two trumpets and solo trumpet, with organist Darryl Nixon.

Duets by Gervaise, Webber, Bach, Aldrovandini, Charpentier, Delibes.

Trumpet solos by Peeters, Handel, Copeland, Stevens.

Organ solos by Bach and Handel

More details to come.  As always, look forward to costumes, dark music, and lots of seasonal treats at the reception afterwards!

Music ranging from the Renaissance to the 21st century, including J. S. Bach’s masterpiece the Passacaglia and Fugue (see complete programme below).

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

Denis Bédard, who was born in Quebec City in 1950, first studied music at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec, graduating with first class honours in organ, harpsichord, chamber music, counterpoint and fugue. He continued his studies in Paris and Montreal, as well as in Amsterdam with Gustav Leonhardt, and was laureate of the “Prix d’Europe” in 1975 and of the CBC Radio Talent Competition in 1978. A professor at the Conservatoire de musique de Québec from 1981 until 1989 and organ professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver from 2001 until 2004, Denis Bédard was organist at St-Coeur-de-Marie church in Quebec City for 19 years and then became organist at St-Roch church, also in Quebec City, in September 1997. Since September 2001 Denis Bédard has been organist and music director at Holy Rosary Cathedral in Vancouver. He is a very active concert artist and has given recitals across Canada, in the United States, in France and in Brazil.

Denis Bédard’s compositions include more than twenty chamber music works as well as orchestral and vocal music and many organ works. He has received commissions from Radio-Canada, the CBC, the Québec Symphony Orchestra and various professional musicians in Canada, England, France, Switzerland and the U.S. Many of his works have been performed internationally (U.S.A., France, Monaco, England, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, China, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Brazil, Ecuador, Israel, Russia), particularly at international organ and saxophone conventions, and several have been recorded on CD. His music, essentially tonal and melodic, is characterized by a concern for formal clarity and immediate communication with as vast a public as possible.

Programme:

Diderik Buxtehude: Passacaglia in D minor, BuxWV 161

Girolamo Frescobaldi: Aria detta la Frescobalda

Antonio Valente: La Romanesca

Gaston Litaize: Vingt-quatre Préludes liturgiques: No. 2

Denis Bédard: Variations sur “Sine Nomine”, Variations sur “Ubi Caritas”

Alexandre Guilmant: Offertoire (O Filii), Op. 49, No. 2 from “L’Organiste pratique

Johann Christian Heinrich Rinck: Variations on the chorale “Mache dich mein Geist bereit”

Diderik Buxtehude: Prelude, Fugue and Ciacona, BuxWV 137

Samuel Scheidt: Psalmus: Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund

Johann Sebastian Bach: Chorale Preludes “Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier”, BWV 730 & BWV 731

Johann Sebastian Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582