BACH and Espresso #localtour

Bach Espresso Tour 2013 from Melissa Dozois on Vimeo.

A long time ago there was a café in Leipzig called Café Zimmermann.  This coffee house was founded by Georg Philipp Telemann, and then was later taken over by Johann Sebastian Bach, between 1729 and 1739. Bach often used this coffee house as a place to perform his instrumental and secular works for the first time.  Well, for the first time ever, a few weeks ago, I brought the music of Bach to one of my favourite coffee shops in Toronto, Sam James.  Philip Fournier and I went on a Bach and Espresso tour in the west end of Toronto, where we both reside. [wholenote article]. We started in Roncesvalles at  Raymond’s café called Balluchon, then  the Common (on College – there are two locations) and then Sam James, the original one, on Harbord. It was so fun to bring a huge harpsichord into all these coffee houses and perform three of the Sonatas for violin and obligato harpsichord.  I am so curious to find ways to bring the community out to spend time with each other, get to know each other, enjoy each other’s company, it is far to easy these days to be totally removed from ones own community. One of the beautiful things about coffee shops, is that they nurture comfortable situation to converse in, and begin conversation. Then, if you add music, and in the case of our show at the Common, even a little wine, it becomes quite a beautiful happening of local people and local music making.  A friend of mine, Melissa Dozois took some beautiful footage of one of the evenings of music at the Common, as well as interviewed me a little bit. I have included the video in this post and I hope you enjoy it. I am also extremely excited to announce that Philip and I will be touring the three remaining violin and harpsichord sonatas in the fall of 2013, as it was so fun and we plan to have all six sonatas under our fingertips – possibly even for a recording project!!!