Winnipeg Baroque Festival audiences will be able to partake in a contemplative evening concert in Wolseley on Tuesday night as members of Proximus 5 share music by an English Renaissance master.
Ensemble members Scott Reimer, Dan Rochegood and Paul Bruch-Wiens will perform William Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices alongside other works in a brief later-evening concert entitled Ves-Byrd that aims to add reflective air to the festival’s proceedings.
Replicating a service
Originally published in approximately 1593, the Mass for Three Voices is just as much a treat to perform for the members of Proximus 5 as it is for audiences to hear. “I talk about this all the time as a musician scratching your own itch,” says Bruch-Wiens, who had the initial idea of performing the music in the festival. “This is my own itch and I’m very happy that the other two find it their itch as well and wanted to do it.”
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While the music is beautiful in its own right, the ensemble is also gratified by the challenge that it presents them. “There’s a lot of heavy lifting for three voices to carry… especially when you get to the Gloria and the Credo when there’s so much text,” explains Reimer.
Along with the Mass, the members of Proximus 5 have also programmed other motets and original Psalm settings by Reimer to bolster the concert’s repertoire. “I think it just broadens and deepens the themes that we’re singing about,” says Rochegood. “If you were at a service, you might experience a minister speaking about these themes, and then you might sing some hymns about these things. So, we try to incorporate that idea of the service itself and then sing these pieces, sing those things that you would maybe hear a minister preach about within the service.”
Nighttime adds to atmosphere
The concert’s 9 p.m. start time was chosen intentionally by the ensemble to heighten the contemplative experience of the concert – a consideration that has quickly become a trademark for the ensemble. “The point is not to be performed to,” explains Bruch-Wiens. “The point is to sit in the music. The point is to have your head down if you need to and just listen.”
Rochegood’s hope for the audience is that the experience the ensemble has curated has fostered connection – “with each other through this thing that we do as humans… through these ideas, and that they’ve made a connection to something greater than themselves, hopefully.”
Ves-Byrd takes place at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church on the corner of Westminster Avenue and Ethelbert Street at 9 p.m. on April 7. Tickets and more information can be found at the Winnipeg Baroque Festival’s website.