Festival Concerts

Department of Music and Dance

April 20-25, 2021 – Bach Festival

All events are FREE except for April 25, Matt Haimovitz

Elizabeth Chang, William Hite, Amanda Stenroos & Tony Thornton, co-producers

All programs subject to change.

Tuesday, April 20, 7:30pm (online via YouTube)
Opus One Chamber Orchestra
With faculty performers Cobus du Toit, flute; Elizabeth Chang, violin & Edward Arron, cello; Gregory Hayes, guest harpsichordist     J.S. Bach: Musical Offering, BWV 1079
Opus One performers, pdf =>      Program Notes by Gregory Hayes =>

Wednesday, April 21, 7:30pm (online via YouTube)
Elizabeth Chang, violin      J.S. Bach: Chaconne for solo violin from Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
      Salvatore Macchia: Grounds for Violin and Electronics (2018, World premiere)
With Jazer Giles, electronics
Program Notes on Grounds by Prof. Macchia =>

Thursday, April 22, 7:30pm (online via YouTube)
Lauren Cox, dancer; Jonathan Hulting-Cohen, baritone saxophone
Gregory Spiridopoulos, trombone
Eduardo Leandro, guest marimba; Ayano Kataoka, marimba
Salvatore Macchia, viola da gamba       Lauren Cox/Jonathan Hulting-Cohen: Prelude (2021)For 4 baritone saxophones and dancer, inspired by the Prelude of Bach’s Solo Cello Suite #1 in G major
      J.S. Bach (arr. Hunsberger): Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582
      J.S. Bach: Trio Sonata No. 2 in C minor, BWV 526
      J.S. Bach: Four duets from Klavier-Übung III, BWV 802-805

Friday, April 23, 7:30pm (online via YouTube)
Kathryn Lockwood, viola & Cobus du Toit, flute
     J.S. Bach: Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
    György Kurtág: Signs, Games and Messages for Solo Viola (1998-2005)
     J.S. Bach: Partita in A minor for solo flute, BWV 1013

Saturday, April 24, all day
Bach Scholarly Symposium

Sunday, April 25, 3pm, $10 general/UMass students free (livestream)
Fine Arts Center presentsMatt Haimovitz: Bach Listening Room
     J.S. Bach: Suite II in D minor, Prelude
     David Sanford: Suolo (World premiere)
     Luna Pearl Woolf: Diaphanous Graces (World premiere)
     J.S. Bach: Suite VI in D on cello piccolo (complete)

Plus, a post-concert Q&A with Haimovitz & Woolf, moderated by Elizabeth Chang & Michael Sakamoto

Scholarly Symposium

Saturday, April 24, 2021  8:30am-5:30pm
Department of Music & Dance (online, free)

Late Style and the Idea of the Summative Work in Bach and Beethoven

Robert Marshall and Scott Burnham, Keynote speakers

Schedule page=>    PDF of Schedule=>    

Presenters:  (click for Presenter bios/photos/abstracts)

Anthony Barone, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Christine Blanken, Bach-Archiv Leipzig
Scott Burnham (Keynote), CUNY Graduate Center, Princeton University
Keith Chapin, Cardiff University
Erinn Knyt, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Richard Kramer, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Robert Marshall (Keynote), Brandeis University
Ernest May, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Reuben Phillips, University of Oxford
Michael Spitzer, University of Liverpool

Moderators:
Ellen Exner, New England Conservatory
Abigail Fine, University of Oregon
Linda Hutcheon, University of Toronto
Daniel R. Melamed, Indiana University
Andrew Talle, Northwestern University

The Symposium will be in virtual format this year: Zoom and YouTube Live
REGISTER=>        SCHEDULE=>      LIVESTREAM=>

Overview:
Artistic “lateness” is often characterized by complexities and contradictions that consolidate a lifetime of achievements and accumulated experience into summative works that seem to live on outside of place and time. At the same time, a composer’s late style has frequently been seen as transcending nostalgia and generating new directions for the next generation of composers.

Late works by J. S. Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven are often historically interpreted as summative capstones, while, at the same time, providing foundations for subsequent repertoire. This symposium brings together scholars from diverse perspectives to elucidate (1) the multiple meanings of Late Style in the music of Bach and Beethoven and (2) how their summative late works have been understood and received by composers, performers, theorists, historians, philosophers, critics, and others. Topics range from the philosophical to the practical: for example, new understandings of Late Style, relationships between reflection and creation, and the reception history of late works.

Symposium Schedule

Saturday, April 24, 2021
Department of Music & Dance

Click for Presenter/Moderator Bios, Photos, Abstracts
Download pdf of this Schedule

Opening Remarks: Salvatore Macchia, Chair of the Department of Music & Dance, UMass Amherst

8:30 – 10:00 am: Paper Session 1   (2 papers plus joint Q & A)Session Moderator: Ellen Exner
Christine Blanken — Steps towards New Concepts and Against Pragmatism in Organ Music: The Late Organ Music by Johann Sebastian Bach – Models, Pathways, and what Posterity Made of it
Reuben Phillips — Completing Bach: The Mass in B Minor and the Art of Fugue in Tovey’s Hands

10:15 am – 11:45 pm: Paper Session 2  (2 papers plus joint Q & A)Session Moderator: Daniel R. Melamed
Erinn Knyt — J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” Reimagined
Michael Spitzer — Cyclic Thoughts In/Between/About The Goldberg and The Diabelli

(Lunch break)

12:15 – 1:45 pm: Paper Session 3  (2 papers plus joint Q & A)
Session Moderator:  Abigail Fine
Anthony Barone — ‘Old Age’s Lambent Peaks’: On Organic and Dialectical Paradigms of Lateness
Keith Chapin — The Sublimity of Age: The Reception of Old Things and Old Men in the Age of Sublimity

2:00 – 3:45 pm: Keynote Event  (2 papers plus extended Q & A)
Introduction: Barbara Krauthamer, Dean of the College of Humanities & Fine Arts
Session Moderator: Linda Hutcheon
Robert Marshall, Keynote Speaker — Spätstil, que me veux-tu?
Scott Burnham, Keynote Speaker —  Late Style in Exile: Beethoven and the Missa Solemnis

4:00 – 5:30 pm: Paper Session 4  (2 papers plus joint Q & A)Session Moderator: Andrew Talle
Ernest May — Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Canonically: The Haussmann Portrait, Mizler’s Society, and Bach’s Late Styles
Richard Kramer — Beethoven and Lateness: A Meditation

Symposium Presenters & Moderators

Please click on any name for Presenter/Moderator biography.

Other Presenters:

Session Moderators: