At the dawn of Montreal’s festival season, Montreal Baroque invites the public to enjoy four joyous days of 17th and 18th century music, dance and theatre. Renowned artists, inspired by their period instruments, gather from around the world to celebrate their passion with a thriving hoard of Montreal musicians. Performed in historic or unconventional venues, the grand productions, intimate concerts, world music, improvisations, parade, musical café, street shows, instrument fair and conferences, peppered with culinary delicacies, make for an eclectic, eccentric and colourful event!
The annual festival theme always inspires out-of-the-box programming and encourages the musicians to push their performances to the limits of their art to the delight of audiences!
2024 Edition: June 13th to 16th
“Parallel Universe”: A celebration of inclusivity, and an embrace of diversity as expressed through music. On the menu: improbable, surprising and unique pairings between musicians of diverse Montreal communities as well as celebrated artists from four continents. This expedition in time and space highlights musical magic from Montreal to Cape Town, Mexico to the Middle East, a universe inspired by, yet parallel to, the great musical centres of Europe!
Susie Napper, founder of the Festival
Cellist, gambist, continuo player par excellence, Susie Napper is alternatively praised or admonished for her colourful and controversial performances of solo and chamber repertoire of the baroque. Characterized by rubato, general freedom of expression, variety of bow strokes and undying preference for harmony over melody, she constantly searches for rhetorical meaning and eloquence to bring the printed page to life. Susie Napper was recognized as Femme de Mérite, ( YWCA 2011) and Personality of the year, Prix Opus, in 2002.
A rebel to the core, from an artistic milieu in London, in her teens she played first performances of Ligetti and Stockhausen as well as performance-art productions in alternative venues. By contrast she studied at the Juilliard School in New York at the height of the Vietnam resistance and at the Paris Conservatoire at the end of the student riots of ‘68. San Francisco followed, where, having had an epiphany on receiving a bass viol, she threw herself headlong into new-wave, HIP baroque music-making, teaching herself the viol by playing, reading treatises and creating new styles of performance inspired by old. Her arrangements of music stolen from the wider baroque repertoire amuse musicians and audiences alike!
As well as co-founding the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in San Francisco with her partner and inspiration, baroque oboist and writer, the late Bruce Haynes, they spent decades parenting delightful kids and musicing worldwide. In Montreal she created the Montreal Baroque Festival, a vehicle to unite the multitalented, Montreal early music community. Susie Napper has spent decades with a foot on either side of the Atlantic recording, performing, teaching in Montreal and Copenhagen and touring Europe, the Far East and Oceania with both the viol duo, Les Voix humaines and with Ensemble Caprice. Centre of her domaine and a constant pleasure has been her kitchen where colourful, flavourful, creative dishes have mirrored her musical taste to surprise, move and inspire.