On Saturday, the DieMahler Ensemble, directed by Mexican-born violinist Pablo Diemecke, will perform a new work by Israel Cahue, San Juan de Ul煤a, along with an early string quartet by Mozart and his famous Rondo alla turca (2:30 p.m., Church of St. Mary the Virgin, $25/$22.50, students by donation; diemahlerenterprises.com).
San Juan de Ul煤a is a massive complex of fortifications off the port city of Veracruz, Mexico, built by the Spanish in the 16th and 17th centuries to protect the wealthy colonial city.
Cahue, a native of Xalapa, the capital of the state of Veracruz, has written a five-movement work inspired by a battle fought at San Juan de Ul煤a, in 1568, between Spanish forces and English privateers, whose criminal activities included the slave trade.
The work is an 鈥渙pera concertante鈥� for soprano, tenor and orchestra, but Cahue arranged it, at Diemecke鈥檚 request, for flute, double bass and string quartet, in which form the DieMahler Ensemble gave its premi猫re last Saturday in Vancouver, at the University of British Columbia鈥檚 School of Music. (The original version will be performed this Saturday at San Juan de Ul煤a.)
Diemecke鈥檚 ensemble has performed other works by Cahue in recent years, including another opera concertante, 5 de Mayo.
Also on Saturday is the fifth instalment in a year-long series marking the 125th anniversary of St. Andrew鈥檚, the Catholic cathedral at the corner of View and Blanshard whose grand, resonant nave is a splendid venue for music. The concert will feature the chamber choir Vox Humana, in appropriately sacred repertoire (7:30 p.m., $20, 25 and under free; voxhumanachoir.ca).
The choir鈥檚 program, characteristically, is wide-ranging, international and focused on modern fare.
The most noteworthy works are Britten鈥檚 Hymn to St. Cecilia, which he wrote in 1942 while returning to England from self-imposed exile in North America, to a text by Auden; Salve Regina (2001), by Arvo P盲rt, with whose music Vox Humana has been closely associated; and a Magnificat setting from 1999 by Scottish composer James MacMillan. The latter two works will be accompanied by organist Nicholas Fairbank.
The program also includes MacMillan鈥檚 Advent antiphon O Radiant Dawn; movements from large-scale sacred works by Vincent Persichetti, Herbert Howells and Urmas Sisask; and a short, novel choral 茅tude by Slovak composer Ivan Hrusovsky.
On Sunday, the latest faculty concert at the University of Victoria鈥檚 School of Music features an unusual trio in an unusual program (8 p.m., Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, $25/$20/$10; streaming online in UVic鈥檚 Listen! Live program; finearts.uvic.ca/music/calendar/events).
Trumpeter Patrick Boyle, an associate professor of jazz studies and director of UVic鈥檚 jazz orchestra, will be joined by his regular trio partners, pianist George McFetridge and bassist James Young, in a program comprising original compositions and improvisations, with details to be announced from the stage. This, Boyle says, is music that 鈥渉as never been played before and will never be played again.鈥�
Finally, next Wednesday, Oct. 25, the Galiano Ensemble of Victoria, the string group founded and conducted by violist Yariv Aloni, will begin its 18th season with a program devoted to Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg (8 p.m., Phillip T. Young Recital Hall, $33/$30; galiano.ca).
Grieg has always been a popular composer, yet he is still often underrated, his musical innovations and considerable influence often overlooked.
He is sometimes dismissed as a purveyor of melodious trifles or, like many 19th-century composers outside the Austro-German orbit, damned with faint praise as a 鈥渘ationalist.鈥�
The Galiano鈥檚 program comprises four string-orchestra transcriptions of works conceived for other forces, three of the transcriptions by Grieg himself: Two Elegiac Melodies (1880), drawn from a collection of songs; From Holberg鈥檚 Time (1885), a Baroquish five-movement suite originally for piano; and Two Nordic Melodies (1895), drawn in part from a much earlier collection of folksongs and dances for piano.
Also on the program are selections from the incidental music Grieg wrote for an 1876 production of Ibsen鈥檚 play Peer Gynt, music that is today best known through Grieg鈥檚 two orchestral suites.
The Galiano will play a modern eight-movement arrangement comprising the score鈥檚 greatest hits, including Morning Mood, Solveig鈥檚 Song, Anitra鈥檚 Dance and In the Hall of the Mountain King.