2019 Bach Festival Archive

Scroll down or click for:
Festival Concerts | Symposium Description/Presenters/Schedule | Prelude Events | Support

2019 Festival Concerts – Archive

Friday, April 12, 2019

4:00 PM: FACULTY CONCERT: Gilles Vonsattel, piano
Bezanson Recital Hall, Fine Arts Center, North Pleasant St., FREE

J.S. Bach: Prelude in C major, BWV 846 from The Well-Tempered Clavier
J.S. Bach: 3 Counterpoints from Art of Fugue, BWV 1080
Mendelssohn: Variations Sérieuses, Op. 54
Shostakovich: Prelude and Fugue in A major, No. 7, Op. 87
Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

Saturday, April 13, 2019

7:00pm: BACH ST. MATTHEW PASSION, BWV 244
UMass Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus
Fine Arts Center Concert Hall, UMass Amherst

Andrew Megill, conductor
Tony Thornton, chorus master
with soloists William Hite, evangelist; Paul Max Tipton, Christus; Jamie-Rose Guarrine, soprano; Krista River, mezzo-soprano; Robert Stahley, tenor; John Salvi, baritone
Choirs: UMass Chamber Choir, Illuminati Vocal Arts Ensemble & Hampshire Young People’s Chorus (K.C. Conlan, director)
Michael Beattie, organ continuo; Guy Fishman, cello continuo

$25 general; Free for UMass students with ID; $5 other students/seniors
Tickets: 413-545-2511 or Online

Click for an excellent New York Times review of a recent performance of the St. Matthew Passion, with Tenet Vocal Artists and the Sebastians early music ensemble in NYC.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

11:00 am: BACH COFFEE CANTATA, BWV 211
Informal setting at Amherst Coffee, 28 Amity Street, Amherst, FREE

Vocal soloists Shelley Roberts, soprano; Brendan Buckley, tenor & John Salvi, bass; with Gregory Hayes, harpsichord

Chamber group:
Madeleine Jansen & Celaya Kirchner, violin
Molly Aronson, cello
Emily Kaplan, flute

 

3:00pm: ALUMNI CANTATA CONCERT
Bezanson Recital Hall, Free
Performance of Cantatas by J.S. Bach:
BWV 42 “Am Abend aber desselbigen Sabbats”
BWV 105 “Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht mit deinem Knecht”

Jeffrey Grossman, continuo/direction
With Maki Matsui, soprano; Liana Gineitis, alto; Eric Perry, tenor & Elijah Blaisdell, bass

Chamber Orchestra:
Madeleine Jansen & Amanda Stenroos, violin
Jonathan Livioco, viola
Wayne Smith, cello
David Casali, bass
Helen Cowles & Catalina Arrubla, oboe
Steve Felix, trumpet
Rémy Taghavi, bassoon

April 2019 Scholarly Symposium – Archive

Bach in the Imaginary Museum and Bach Re-Imagined: Contemporary Perspectives on Performing and Re-Creating Bach

J. S. Bach’s music—widely regarded as a foundation of the “standard repertoire”—is constantly being recycled within contemporary musical culture, ranging from historic recreations and historically informed performances (HIP), to adaptations, arrangements, covers, and new works that are influenced by or inspired by “Bach.” This symposium seeks to bring together scholars (and possibly composers) from diverse perspectives to elucidate the multiple ways that the music of J.S. Bach has been re-imagined from the time of the Mendelssohn Revival to the present.

Topics range from the philosophical to the practical: notions of the work concept and Werktreue; new perspectives on historically informed performance practice; arrangements and adaptations; changing ideas about the role of the performer; Bach in popular music, film music, and jazz; and the influence of Bach in the composition of new works and as a topic in contemporary culture.

 2019 Presenters – Archive

Please click on name for Presenter/Panelist biography.

2019 Symposium Schedule – Archive

Friday, April 12, 2019

7:30-9:00 pm: Panel Discussion: “Intercultural and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Bach’s St. Matthew Passion“
Fine Arts Center: Bezanson Recital Hall; Free

Moderator: Ernest May (UMass Amherst, pictured)
Lydia Goehr (Columbia University)
Michael Marissen (Swarthmore College)
Ruth HaCohen (Hebrew University, Jerusalem)
Andrea Moore (Smith College)
Yo Tomita (Queen’s University Belfast)
Thomas Cressy (Cornell University)

The Panel Discussion will be live-streamed on Facebook Live, UMassMusicDance

Saturday, April 13, 2019

Paper Sessions and Keynote Address are in Bezanson Recital Hall, N. Pleasant St., Amherst
Cost: $5 Students; $25 General; Free for Presenters/Performers. Accepted: cash or check made out to UMass Amherst

8:30-9:00 am: Morning Refreshments and Registration
Fine Arts Center: Bezanson Recital Hall Lobby

9:00-10:30 am: Paper Session I: Compositional and Theoretical Approaches
Welcome by Roberta Marvin, Chair of the Department of Music and Dance
Session Chair: Roberta Marvin
Owen Belcher — J.S. Bach on Exhibit in the Museum of Music Theory
Emiliano Ricciardi — Transcribing and Completing The Art of Fugue: The Case of Berio’s Contrapunctus XIX
Maureen Carr — Echoes of an Offering: Bach’s Influence on the Creative Process for the Symphony of Psalms fugue 

10:45 am-12:15 pm: Paper Session II: Bach on Piano
Session Chair: Mark Rodgers
Erinn Knyt — The Bach-Busoni Goldberg Variations
Karolina Kolinek — Bach Rewrite – Marcin Masecki, Wurlitzer Piano and Ontology of Bach’s Music
Ernest May — Glenn Gould, Bach Digital, Bach 333, and YouTube: Bach in the Digital Museum of Musical Performance

12:15-1:30 pm: Lunch
 University Club, 243 Stockbridge Road

Lunch music performance by UMass alumni Lidia Chang, traverso (period flute) & Victoria Suchodolski, harpsichord

 

1:45-2:45 pm: Keynote Address:
Fine Arts Center: Bezanson Recital Hall
Welcome by Dean Julie Hayes
Lydia Goehr (Columbia University)
The Work of Music: Situating Bach in a Public Culture of Blasphemy, Devotion, and Resurrection

 

3:00-4:30 pm: Paper Session III: Bach Reception
Session Chair: Ernest May
Yo Tomita — The Bach Printed-Music Database and its Roles in the Reception Study of Bach’s Works
Ellen Exner — Friedrich Smend, Friedrich Blume, and the Myth of Mendelssohn’s “Matthew”
John Lutterman — Interpreting Bach’s Cello Suites: Werktreue vs. Praxistreue

4:45-6:15 pm: Paper Session IV: Religion, Culture, and Bach
Session Chair: Marianna Ritchey
Ruth HaCohen — A Nietzschean Moment in a Bach’s Passion? – Revisiting “Zerfließe mein Herze”, BWV 245 (35)
Tekla Babyak — The St. Thomas Aquinas of Music: Liszt’s Catholic Image of Bach
Peter Kupfer —  “Good Hands”: The Music of J.S. Bach in Television Commercials

6:15-6:45 pm: Evening Reception
Fine Arts Center: Bezanson Recital Hall Lobby

2019 Prelude Events

UMass String Studio Bach Concerts

Thurs., December 6, 2018 @ 7:30pm, Bezanson Hall, Free
UMass Violin students perform Sonatas & Partitas of J.S. Bach

Sun., March 31, 2019 @ 7:30pm, Bezanson Hall, Free
UMass Viola & Cello students perform music of J.S. Bach & Telemann
Movements from: J.S. Bach’s Gamba Sonata No. 3, Cello Suites No. 1, 3 & 6, and the complete Telemann Concerto No. 1 for Four Violas

Bach Festival Prelude Lecture Series
Wednesdays at 5pm in Bezanson, Free

March 20: Nicola Courtright, Professor of Art History & Chair of Architectural Studies, Amherst College
Princely and Sacred Spaces in Europe During the Era of Bach

April 10: Joseph Levine, Professor & Chair of the Philosophy Department, UMass Amherst
Enlightenment Philosophers on Mind and Reality: Major Themes

 

Bach in the Subways 

A Global Event around Bach’s birthday, March 21
March 21, 2019, downtown Amherst (FREE)
This year, BitS coincides with “Jamherst” – March 22-23
See the Bach in the Subways – Amherst website for more info

2019 Support

With support from

And additional support from:

Stamell Stringed Instruments, Amherst, MA & Poughkeepsie, NY

Northampton Community Music Center, Northampton, MA

Five College Learning in Retirement, Northampton, MA