Peace, Friendship and Joy

Your 2025 Festival journey takes you to northern Germany in the time of the Thirty Years’ War, a period of immense creativity inspired by the stile nuovo of Italy.

Johannes Voorhout's painting Allegory and friendship provides a convenient portal to "Peace, Friendship and Joy." It presents a remarkable image of three friends, Hamburg's leading composers - Johann Reinken, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Johann Thiele.

The wealthy port of Hamburg, a free city sheltered from war, not only became a refuge for many musicians but through its wealth became a flourishing center of music.  Outside its fortifications raged one of the most brutal conflicts In Europe’s history, stimulating music that reflected the horrors of war and a longing for peace and heavenly pleasures.  The end of the conflict heralded a new era of creativity whose path led to late-baroque geniuses including Johann Sebastian Bach.  This musical journey will also take you to savor keyboard works created for intimate settings along with a program of music written for the grand organs of Europe.

Pacific Baroque Festival 2025 features the return the internationally acclaimed German soprano Dorothee Mields, one of today’s leading interpreters of 17th and 18th-century music:

“This soprano has everything: sweetness, “unaffected purity” (Charles Downey), pitch-perfect intonation, unflappable at any tempo, and with a movingly dramatic execution of the text because she loves the word nearly as much as the note.” – forbes.com

“Mields is splendid. Her poise, luminous vocalism and animated dialogue with the band show why she’s an Early Music legend.” – BBC Music 

The Festival will also welcome Aaron James, one of Canada’s foremost organists, who will perform two concerts, an intimate concert on the fine Joseph Brombaugh organ at St Barnabas followed by a grander performance on the famous Helmutt Wolff organ at Christ Church Cathedral.