This Saturday, Canzona will present Bed, Bach & Beyond on campus as a part of the 2025 Winnipeg Baroque Festival. This eclectic concert features music by Johann Sebastian Bach alongside works by modern composers, including Billy Joel, who have been inspired by the Baroque period.

Founded in 1989, Canzona is a Manitoba-based choral group that specializes in Baroque music. However, artistic director Elroy Friesen — a U of M alumnus-turned-professor — says the ensemble often ventures beyond the genre.

“Everything [Canzona is] doing is sort of rooted in Baroque music. We’re also trying to push the boundaries a little bit and sort of recontextualize Baroque things, as we are in this concert,” he said.

 Bed, Bach & Beyond will include Bach’s cantata “Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich,” as well as the motet “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied.”

“The ‘beyond’ part is there are a number of works on the program that are based on Baroque works, I think in this case, mostly Handel and one by Bach. So they’re written by modern composers, but they’re rooted directly in a particular Baroque work,” said Friesen.

“The ‘bed’ part [is] just a play on the words Bed Bath and Beyond […] So that led us to hunting down works. These are modern works that are related to sleep, the bed, that kind of thing. So it is actually a really, really cool melding of things in what we all get to do.”

Friesen explained that the Baroque period has inspired generations of composers, and this concert offers an opportunity to re-examine that legacy through a contemporary lens.

“[Bach] was famous and radical in his time, like he was pushing the boundaries back then. That’s my understanding anyway, and then he sort of fell off the radar after he passed away [but] Mendelssohn really sort of revived Bach in particular,” he said. I would say that Bach definitely influenced Mendelssohn, and then Mendelssohn influenced, like from the Romantic era, influenced things,” Friesen added.

“For this concert, the Baroque composers are — obviously we wouldn’t be doing this concert unless we had Bach and company — but the composers are sort of re-imagining some Baroque works in a contemporary context.”

Sandra Goetz, one of the choristers and a music education student at U of M, says performing Baroque music can be challenging — but that’s part of the appeal.

“I think that some of the music is challenging on the Baroque side, just with rhythms and things like that, but also just like harmonic structures that are sometimes unexpected […] And that goes also into the modern, contemporary stuff as well,” she said.

Goetz added that the complexity of older music can be often overlooked. “Sometimes we think about old music as just like, making sense musically, but there’s little twists and turns and corners and tricky things that are challenging to get but fulfilling once you get them.

“I’ve really enjoyed sort of the difference between the old and the new in this concert and bringing it all together and feeling where that theme is kind of driving us, and making a really special program. I think it will come together nicely.”

Bed, Bach & Beyond will take place on campus in the Desautels Concert Hall on April 12 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at deadofwinter.ca/product/bed-bach-beyond-canzona-april-12th-2025. Student tickets can also be purchased at the door for $5 right before the show.