Wish You Were Here is the title that Suzie LeBlanc and her colleagues have given to the program they will present at the Matsqui Centennial Auditorium on Friday, March 27, at 7:30 p.m.
Borrowing the title of a Pink Floyd album may seem unconventional for a program of mostly early music. Their subtitle leans into that quirky juxtaposition: A Love Letter to Bach, Monteverdi, Purcell, and More.
The group will indeed sing the song by Pink Floyd among the works by those more venerable stalwarts. Finding inspiration across genres and across eras is a longstanding tradition. The list of contemporary artists who have used the themes of Bach, Vivaldi, and many more in their rock or folk or jazz compositions is endless.
Grégoire Jeay has worked the adaptation in the opposite direction. He has taken a modern song and arranged it for instruments used in the Baroque era.
Jeay, who has come from Montreal to join the other musicians for this program, is a Baroque flute specialist. He plays both the traverso, a side-blown flute held horizontally, and the recorder, an end-blown instrument held vertically. His interests extend to flutes from a variety of other cultures as well.
Grégoire has performed and recorded with a great many ensembles such as Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and individuals such as the great Karina Gauvin and Emma Kirkby.
Jeay is also a composer and arranger, a talent brought to bear on the title piece of this concert. A fascinating specialty of his is producing music for European and Chinese circuses.
We are incredibly fortunate to have such a talented and accomplished group of artists as Jeay, Weimann, Meyers, and LeBlanc in our series.
Tickets for this concert are available online at www.valleyconcertsociety.com at $32 for adults and $20 for students. For more information, call 604-289-3377.
John Wiebe - President
The Valley Concert Society