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Concert Details
HANDEL'S MESSIAH CONCERT PERFORMANCE
Saturday, November 23, 2019 @2:00 pm
Gabriola Community Hall
Gabriola Island
Experience the humanity and goodwill of Handel’s beloved choral masterpiece.
Handel’s Messiah transcends cultural, geographic, and religious boundaries with its message of charity, peace, goodwill, and sacrifice. It also contains some of the most uplifting, touching, and magnificent music ever composed.
Michael Jarvis directs four soloists, orchestra, and chamber choir, offering audiences the second London version of Handel’s masterpiece. Four up-and-coming young soloists from Victoria will be joining the choir: soprano Gwendolyn Jamieson, counter-tenor Kyle Guilfoyle; tenor Adam Dyjach; and bass-baritone Louis Dillon. The orchestra will perform the music using Baroque-period bows, which lends a lighter transparency of sound so the music better balances the singers. Instrumentalists and singers will use historically informed performance practices to try to replicate what Handel originally intended when he composed this glorious music. Our annual performances of Messiah have become a cherished annual tradition on Salt Spring Island, and we are excited to take this music on the road to Gabriola Island!
Guest Soloists
Gwendolyn Jamieson, soprano
Kyle Guilfoyle, countertenor
Adam Dyjach, tenor
Louis Dillon, bass-baritone
Gwendolyn Jamieson
soprano
Gwendolyn Jamieson has cultivated a keen interest in early vocal music for many years. From age 10, she has sung in choirs, and was invited, at age 14, to join the women’s choir, Ensemble Laude. Gwen has performed as a soloist with the Renaissance ensemble A Great Noyse, and choirs Ensemble Laude and Via Choralis, and recently at the Gala Concert of the Ancient Music Society of Victoria. She is a member of Banquo Folk Ensemble, and is featured on their 3rd studio album, Whither Are They Vanished.
Over five summers she has attended the Historically Informed Summer School in York, England, the UBC Summer Vocal Academy, the Victoria Conservatory of Music’s Summer Vocal Academy and Advanced Vocal Academy, where she studied with Nancy Argenta, Ingrid Attrot and Daniel Taylor, and the Lissberg, Germany Hurdy Gurdy Conference, where she studied with British hurdy gurdy virtuoso, Scott Marshall.
Gwen recently completed her Diploma in Vocal Performance from Camosun College and the Victora Conservatory of Music, and is continuing her studies by pursuing a degree in vocal performance at the University of Victoria. Her current teacher is Anne Grimm. In addition to her singing, Gwen is also an accomplished instrumentalist on hurdy gurdy and harp.
Kyle Guilfoyle began as a boy soprano at age 13 in the Children’s Choir of St Paul’s Cathedral in Toronto. This experience sparked his love of music and he started singing in earnest at 19. He obtained his Bachelor of Music degree in Early Music and Voice Performance from McGill University's Schulich School of Music (2007-2012); and his Master of Music degree in Voice from the University of Toronto (2012-2014), where he studied with counter-tenor Daniel Taylor. He also studied with soprano Nancy Argenta whilst on a leave of absence from his Master of Music at the University of Toronto.
The recipient of numerous awards, recent achievements include the Copeland Fellowship, the David and Marcia Beach Summer Study award (University of Toronto), and the NRS award (Victoria Conservatory of Music).
Kyle Guilfoyle
countertenor
Adam Dyjach
tenor
A native of Waterloo Ontario, Adam commenced his musical education at Wilfrid Laurier University in Voice Performance under the direction of Kimberly Barber. He now resides in Victoria, BC where he completed his Masters in Voice Performance with Benjamin Butterfield at the University of Victoria and continues to study privately with Carolyn Sinclair.
Past performance highlights include: Tenor soloist in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (Vancouver Island Symphony), the Evangelist in Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium and Tenor Soloist in his Magnificat (Sooke Philharmonic Choir, Malaspina Choir), Bach’s Cantata 196, 40, Missa in G, and Handel’s Messiah (Handel Society of Music), Haydn’s Spatzenmesse and Missa Sancti Nicolai, Bach Cantata No. 40 as well as Mozart’s Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento in Bb major, KV 125 (Bach on the Rock) and Requiem in D minor (Parksville Community Choir), Verdi's Messa da Requiem and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass (North Island Choral Society), Orff’s Carmina Burana (Vancouver Island Symphony, Ballet Victoria), Bach’s Coffee Cantata, Christoph Graupner’s Herr nun lässest du deinen Diener and Johann Kuhnau’s Mein Alter kömmt, ich kann nicht sterben (Pacific Baroque Festival), Haydn’s Creation (Via Choralis) , Bach's Cantatas BWV 99, 125 and 155, (Victoria Baroque Players) and the Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 (Victoria Philharmonic Choir) and Frederic in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance (Victoria G & S Society)
He has performed the Operatic roles of Sumers in Cimarosa’s L’italiana in Londra, Ferrando in Mozart’s Così fan tutte, Ernesto in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Oronte in Handel’s Alcina, Romeo in Neil Weisensal’s City Workers in Love, The Doctor in David Foley’s May 23rd and Monostatos in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte.
Adam is a choral scholar at St. Barnabas Church under the direction of Michael Jarvis. He also sings with the Schooner Cove Singers, a brand new professional choir based in Parksville, BC. In the past, Adam has been a member of the St. Christopher Singers, Victoria Philharmonic Choir, Victoria Choral Society and Pacific Opera Victoria Chorus. He also teaches private singing lessons and is a music instructor at the Taber Music School.
Louis Dillon
bass-baritone
Born and raised in Halfmoon Bay, BC, bass-baritone Louis Dillon owes his love of singing to his mother, a voice teacher. He currently studies with Ingrid Attrot and Nancy Argenta and is working hard to complete a diploma in Vocal Performance at the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
Louis has sung with Pacific Opera Victoria’s chorus for the past three seasons, appearing with them as the second prisoner in Fidelio and the Customs Sergeant in La Boheme, and also as a soloist in their outreach programs. In his efforts to become more at home on the stage, Louis has sung roles such as Sarastro (The Magic Flute), Al (City Workers in Love), Guglielmo (Cosí Fan Tutte), and Bartolo (Le Nozze di Figaro) in various student productions, and will be returning to The Magic Flute as Papageno in VCM’s upcoming production. Outside of opera, Louis has performed in concert with East Van Opera, the VCM orchestra, Sooke Philharmonic, and the Victoria Baroque Players, and works as a choral scholar at the First Metropolitan United Church. In 2017, his performances won him 1st place at the 2017 Performing Arts BC Provincials.