Summer Baroque in the Trees is a 2-day concert series that grew from a desire to keep performing during the Covid-19 pandemic. We learned that it was safer to attend events outside – and Summer Baroque in the Trees was born! Come and sit amongst the arbutus and Douglas firs, watch the deer saunter by, and enjoy some beautiful baroque music.
Concert #1
Gallo Chamber Players
Saturday, July 27 2024 @2:00 pm
108 Merganser Place, Salt Spring Island
Concert #2
Concerti a Due Cori antiphonal concert
Sunday, July 28 2024 @2:00 pm
108 Merganser Place, Salt Spring Island
Please bring a hat or umbrella and your own lawn chair (we will have a few extra chairs if you need one), and park on the cul-de-sac. There is limited parking closer to the venue for people with limited mobility – check with the parking attendant. No dogs allowed.
There will be an intermission where refreshments will be served.
There are three ways to purchase tickets – at the Salt Spring Baroque TIX site, at the ArtSpring Box Office, and at the door. Links for both online sites are below. On the SSB Tix site only, you can purchase a ticket that will allow you to see both concerts for a reduced price of $40.
Note: to purchase tickets on the Salt Spring Baroque TIX site, click on the black button above which will take you to the TIX website. Once on the TIX website, click the green button to select your tickets – prior to checking out you will need to set up a TIX account if you don't already have one. This can be done by clicking on the person icon in the top right next to the shopping cart.
If you don't wish to purchase tickets online, just send us a note at info@saltspringbaroque.com – we will gladly reserve seats for you and you can pay by cash or card at the door.
CONCERT INFORMATION
Concert #1 July 27th
Gallo Chamber Players 
Violin: Majka Demcak, Rebecca Ruthven, and Jiten Beairsto
Cello: Emily Burton
Crossroads & Consolations – programme notes by Majka Demcak
Crossroads & Consolations began with a constraint: our regular harpsichord player, Connor Page, wouldn't be able to join us. Putting together a program of Baroque music without a keyboard player is far more challenging than doing so with one less string player. The harpsichord is a key aesthetic signifier of the Baroque era, but it has a crucial practical function as well. In pop music terms, playing without a harpsichord is like playing without a rhythm section. We knew that this program, compared to anything we've performed before, might feel less grounded and more ethereal.
The first set of pieces we decided to include were Rebecca Nelson's "Consolations." Rebecca and I met during our studies at Juilliard, during which time she was studying baroque music and began composing and arranging music. The Consolations she wrote were debuted in her 2023 album "Do Not Lament." She wrote them as she was healing from the grief and tragic death of her older sister. I was so inspired by my friend and her music and knew I wanted to play these pieces one day. To me, they represent her gentle spirit, strength in healing, and the beauty of love that lasts through loss. The sonority of three violins performing without a bass line captures the spectrum of sisterly love and friendship."
Hearing how the "Consolations" travel seamlessly between baroque, folk, and contemporary classical music inspired us to take a completely different approach to constructing this program. Instead of presenting multi-movement works as discrete chunks, we wanted to provide an experience more akin to listening to a record of popular music, where one track leads straight into the next. This gave us the liberty to pluck smaller sections of music, such as the Adagio from the "Die Relenge" ("Tree Frog") Violin Concerto by Georg Friedrich Telemann (1681-1767), out of their usual context and place them alongside music from a different country or era. You will still hear some multi-movement works on this program, namely the rarely-performed Sonata for Three violins by Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux (1660-1741) and the virtuosic Violin Concerto by Italian composer Francesco Durante (1684-1755), but you will also hear snippets of music that we included purely to transition from one piece to the next. Some of those appear on the program, and others do not, which may make this program harder to follow. The payoff, we hope, is that the divisions we often emphasize – genre, nationality, time period – start to lose their importance. Instead, we notice the intersections, not just of musical forms, but also of grief, joy, and every emotion in between.
Concert #2 July 28th
Concerti a Due Cori – programme notes by Kerry Graham
This summer we are pleased to present our first Antiphonal concert on two stages!
The Baroque period saw an explosion in music written for instruments. Had you lived in the Middle Ages or Renaissance, you would have likely heard instrumental music but much of it would have been either dance music or vocal music played by instruments. Around 1600, composers started writing more music specifically for musical instruments that might be played at a variety of occasions. One of the first such instrumental composers was Giovanni Gabrieli (1554-1612). Giovanni Gabrieli was a composer of the late Renaissance Venetian School and his works represent the peak of musical achievement for Venetian music. Giovanni succeeded his uncle, Andrea Gabrieli, as the organist at Venice's St. Marks Basilica 1586, and held this position until his death in 1612. Gabrieli perfected a compositional technique known as cori spezzati (literally, "split choirs"). This technique was developed in the sixteenth century at St. Mark's where composers would contrast different instrumentalists and groups of singers utilizing the effects of space in the church. Different sub-ensembles would be placed in different areas of the sanctuary. One sub-ensemble would play the "call" and another would give the "response." This musical back and forth is called antiphonal performance and creates a stereophonic sound between the two ensembles. This placement of performers and the specific writing of the parts created the first type of stereo sound and three-dimensional listening experiences for parishioners in the congregation.
This concert will be in the style of those performed by Gabrieli at St. Marks Cathedral. You will hear sackbuts, dulcians, violins, cornetto, and recorders, in music specifically written for two instrumental choirs on two opposing platforms. Works by Canale, Gabrieli, Marini, Cavaccio, Picchi, Viadana, Chedeville, Cima, Stradella, and Padovano.
There will also be smaller ensemble works featuring selected instruments performing dance music by Holborne, Pezel and Susato.
The players:
Marea Chernoff, recorders
Bill Jamieson, recorders and cornetto
Paul Luchkow and Kathryn Wiebe, violin
Katrina Russell and Kerry Graham, dulcian
Jeremy Berkman and Marcus Hissen, sackbut
St Mark's Basilica with two lateral choir lofts