Well, I think we "bottomed out" last week; from here on in the concerts start to cluster together (for warmth?) in the way we know so well here in Victoria.
I know at least one person who will be excited by tonight's concert from the Victoria Baroque Players (and, indeed, James tells me he is planning to attend).
It is the group's last concert of the 2012-13 season, although they will also be playing at Eine Kleine Summer Music in - as regulars don't need telling - June.
Joining, nay leading, the Players for A French Banquet will be Montreal-based violinist Chloe Meyers.
The programme consists of works that James can doubtless whistle the main themes from at the drop of a hat. Me, I'm content to recognise the names of the composers; in this case Rameau - the Dance Suite from Dardanus and the fifth of the Pièces de Clavecin en Concert (I am actually a big fan of Rameau's keyboard music); Leclair - Deuxième Récréation de Musique; and Jean-Féry Rebel (I am manfully resisting all the puns which spring to mind) whose Les Eléments (I wonder what that means?) closes the programme.
The concert begins at 7:30 in the Church of St. John the Divine. Tickets are available from Munro’s Books, Ivy’s Bookshop, St. John's office and at the door. For more information email info@victoria-baroque.com or call 250-388-7760.
This week's busiest performers - and I trust they're not violating any federal or provincial labour law - are Vox Humana and the Victoria Children's Choir.
Tonight's performance features the former, with the latter as guests; Monday's concert (see below) is vice-versa.
Oh Canada! features (we are assured) "the finest in Canadian choral music" and will include newly-commissioned Canadian folk song arrangements by David Archer, Jeff Enns and Sarah Quartel, and music by Stephen Chatman and Harry Somers.
As ever Brian Wismath will conduct this fine choir and their guests.
The concert takes place in St. Mary's Anglican Church, Saanichton, beginning at 7:30. Tickets available online at the choir's site, or at the door.
If you really, really love choral music you'll no doubt want to catch tonight's concert, The Heavens and the Earth, (although I cannot forebear to mention that, in at least one place on the Conservatory's website, "Earth" is plural, which gives one pause for thought, but I digress) which features the Victoria Children's Choir with Vox Humana as their guests
The programme seems not to overlap with Saturday's, featuring the same forces, and more power to them. Tonight's offerings include music by Debussy, Bob Chilcott (I used to work with a Bill Chilcott nearly forty yearsago, I wonder...), Imant Raminsh, Jeff Enns, Judy Specht and more. It will also include the world premiere of Nick Piper's Changes composed for the choir.
I am assuming, in the absence of any word to the contrary, that VCC Artistic Director Madeleine Humer will be conducting the programme, which begins in the Conservatory's Alix Goolden Performance Hall at 7 p.m. Tickets from Ivy's Bookshop, Larsen Music, Long & McQuade, Christ Church Cathedral or online .
Had things worked out (it is a long story) I would have been in England right now (my oldest nephew is getting married tomorrow).
Things didn't work out and so I am still here; but even if I had gone, I had tonight firmly marked in my calendar as an event that I absolutely had to be back in time for.
Precisely why Yariv Aloni and the Galiano Ensemble have such a wonderful affinity with English music is something of a mystery, but one for which I am profoundly grateful.
Tonight they will be giving what is threatening to become an annual event: A Celebration of English Music to close their 2012-13 season.
The programme should be making an musical anglophile salivate in anticipation: Holst's St. Paul Suite, Finzi's Romance, Ireland's Concertino Pastorale, Vaughan Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, and Haydn Wood's Fantasy Concerto.
I am particularly looking forward to the Vaughan Williams, which the Galianos have performed before - but on that occasion, I was in England. The work was first performed in New York in 1939 under Dr. (as he then still was) Adrian Boult in the English Pavilion at the World Fair, for which it was commissioned. It employs five versions of the same theme, which is also known in Scotland as Gilderoy and in Ireland as The Star of the County Down.
This much-anticipated (certainly by yours truly and MiV comrade Martin Monkman) event begins at 8 p.m. in the Phillip T Young Recital Hall. Tickets are available from Ivy's Book Shop, Munro's Books and (assuming there are any left) at the door. They may also be reserved by calling 250-704-2580.
Next week it will very nearly June, and we all know what that means.