What: Civic Orchestra of Victoria:Sing-Along Messiah
When: Dec. 18, 7 p.m.
Where: Alix Goolden Hall
Tickets: $22 general, $18 students/seniors, $10 rush tickets for students with ID. Children 12 and under free when accompanied by an adult. Tickets at civicorchestraofvictoria.org/purchasing.html, 250-477-8868, Larsen Music, Long & McQuade, Ivy’s Bookshop, Tanner’s Books and Sheiling Cards & Gifts.
When Victoria native Trevor Bowes returns home to perform as a soloist in the Sing-Along Messiah, he brings with him a new familiarity of the holiday classic and the man who wrote it.
Bowes, a bass-baritone with the English National Opera, said he has recently found himself performing in the same places and spaces as composer George Frideric Handel. So while almost every operatic and choral singer can lay claim to a hefty resumé of Messiah performances, his seem a bit more personal.
“I’ve done rather a lot of Messiahs. One year, I did 11 within the space of a month — that was sort of the peak of it,” Bowes said in an interview from London.
“But for me, the most special one was last year, when I sang excerpts from Messiah in Handel’s own living room in London.”
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The Brook Street residence, where the Baroque composer lived from 1723 until his death in 1759, has been opened as a museum. Professional musicians are invited to perform in the space, which is outfitted with harpsichords and other instruments.
But that’s not all.
“Around the corner from Handel’s house is the church he attended every Sunday. So recently, I’ve started singing there,” Bowes said. “Basically I’ve, weekly, started inhabiting Handel’s world. It’s pretty cool.”
Bowes grew up in Victoria, where he attended Vic High and studied at the Victoria Conservatory of Music under Selena James.
He studied the flute seriously in his youth, but shifted focus to opera by age 17 for the way it gave him more of a “total package” experience, with opportunities for acting and interpreting text. He graduated from the University of Toronto and, in 2006, moved to London, where he was hired by Opera North.
“I’m glad I studied in Canada because you get amazing training there and it’s comparatively very affordable,” he said. “But careerwise, I’ve felt lucky to be able to work elsewhere as well. And certainly in Britain there are many more opportunities.”
At 33, his voice hasn’t quite matured enough for the prime bass-baritone roles that he guesses are about 10 years away.
“I’m still very young for my voice type, so if I do roles now, they’re probably the smaller ones,” he said.
His favourite roles are the evil or supernatural ones — including Death in Gustav Holst’s Savitri.
Bowes rarely gets a chance to perform in Victoria, since he usually returns only for holidays. The Sing-Along Messiah, which invites the audience to play the role of chorus, will be his first in about two years.
Bowes is joined at the concert by soprano Stephanie Landucci, alto Eva Rebecca Bild, tenor Sunny Shams, trumpet player James Stubbs and continuo Michael Cochran.
It will be led by Hilary Coupland, a family friend who also conducted Bowes’ last performance in Victoria in 2011. Coupland had called producing and conducting Mendelssohn’s Elijah a “bucket list” item and arranged the sold-out concert for her 65th birthday. Since then, she completed a second “bucket list” item: conducting Miss Saigon, last May. Leading Messiah will be her third.
Bowes said that arranging to come home for only four days to sing Elijah under Coupland was a whirlwind experience. If all goes as planned, he said, the Sing-Along will go just as well. “It was crazy. But it was so worth it because she’s very passionate and created this huge outpouring of goodwill from all her friends,” he said.
“So I imagine this concert will have the same sort of spirit about it.”
