As a special seasonal gift, EMSI is pleased to bring A Baroque Christmas to your home!

EMSI presents a varied Christmas programme featuring baroque music from Austria, France, Germany, Italy – and Canada! In addition to works by Biber, Campra, Telemann, and the featured work, the charming Cantata Pastorella by Benedikt Aufschnaiter (1665-1742), the concert includes the seventeenth-century “Huron Carol” sung in the original Huron/Wendat.

Jan van der Hooft  tenor
Paul Luchkow  baroque violin
Elyssa Lefurgy-Smith  baroque violin
Christina Mahler  baroque ‘cello
Michael Jarvis  harpsichord

Canadian lyric tenor Jan van der Hooft has been described as “a rare breed, comfortable with high tessitura, and showing an exciting lyricism in the sound.”* Despite being cut short due to the pandemic, the 2019-20 season included several notable performances. Jan made his west coast debut with both Pacific Opera Victoria (Il Trittico and Missing) and Vancouver Opera (Flight of the Hummingbird), as well as other Vancouver Island groups including the Victoria Civic Orchestra (Messiah) and the Sooke Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. This spring Jan was also scheduled to be on tour until May with Hummingbird, and to appear with the Victoria Philharmonic (Creation), The Victoria Mendelssohn Choir (Petite Messe Solennelle) and Bach on the Rock, on Saltspring Island. Between 2017 and 2019, Jan was a resident artist with the Calgary Young Artist program where his performance credits included a company debut as Tybalt in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette and The Nephew, in the world premier of Veronika Krauses’ Ghost Opera. Over the summer, Jan and his fiancé Anna Shill, were part of Opera Nuova’s ‘Coast to Coast Concert series’ which was broadcast back in June. He and Anna live, work and teach in Victoria.