Music festival blockbuster performance features VCC talent

On Wednesday, Aug. 7, baritone Tyler Duncan and mezzo-soprano Paula Kremer will perform in Handel’s grand oratorio Israel in Egypt, the cornerstone of this summer’s Vancouver Early Music Festival.

The performance at UBC’s Chan Centre for the Performing Arts features an international cast of early music specialists with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra conducted by Alexander Wymann.

Tyler Duncan studied classical voice at VCC before completing his bachelor’s degree at UBC. Subsequent studies in Germany prepared him for an international career in oratorios, opera and lieder. Currently based in New York, Duncan recently made his debut with a series of four performances with the New York Philharmonic. Earlier this year he was a soloist with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal in Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ.

Longtime VCC music instructor Paula Kremer, herself a VCC alumna, is also taking part in the performance as part of a special chorus put together for this performance from the best historically informed singers in the Pacific Northwest. 

Kremer, who continued her post-VCC studies at UBC, has also specialized in choral conducting, studying in programs at Eton, Westminster Choir College, the University of Michigan, and the Eastman School of Music. Earlier this summer she was named Artistic Director of the Vancouver Cantata Singers.

Israel in Egypt was composed by George Frideric Handel in 1733, an oratorio in English based on Exodus and the Psalms. It remains one of his best and most dramatic works.