Bach Week Founders Reunite to Open 39th Festival Today

The 39th annual edition of the Chicago area's Bach Week Festival, where Baroque music lovers luxuriate in diverse works of Johann Sebastian Bach, will present a signature blend of solo, concerto, orchestral, and choral performances in concerts tonight April 27, May 4, and May 6 in Evanston.

Audiences will hear some J.S. Bach works that have never before been performed at the festival.

Bach Week 2012 will begin with a backwards glance when the festival's founding fathers, Karel Paukert and Richard Webster, reunite in concert for the first time since the inaugural Bach Week in May 1974, when they played harpsichords in a Bach concerto. 

This time, Paukert and Webster will put organ pedals to the metal in a festival-opening concert of organ duets titled "Bach to the Beginning" at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 27, at Northwestern University's Alice Millar Chapel, 1870 Sheridan Road, Evanston.

Sitting together at Millar Chapel's 100-rank Aeolian-Skinner organ, Paukert and Webster will perform the first organ duets ever heard during the festival's nearly four-decade run. Among them is "Three Duets" by C.P.E. Bach, a son of J.S. Bach.

Other duets will include Italian Renaissance composer Giuseppe Guami's Canzone "La Lucchesina" a 8 and two fanciful and delicately ornamental Rococo pieces: the Sonata in F Major by Gaetano Piazza and Sonata in D Major/Concertino a due in G Major by Bonaventura Terreni.

Also on the program: Samuel Sebastian Wesley's "Duet for Organ," written in a traditional late-19th century English style; Danish composer Niels Wilhelm Gade's "Andante for Organ, Four Hands"; the anonymously written Concertino a due Cembali; and American composer Horatio Parker's "Quick March," an optimistic, high-spirited piece. Parker (1863-1919) once served as organist and choirmaster at Boston's historic Trinity Church, the post now held by Bach Week's Webster.

Paukert will do the honors of playing a solo organ work by J.S. Bach: the monumental Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, much revered by organists and organ aficionados. 

Paukert launched the Bach Week Festival while he was an associate professor of organ and church music at Northwestern University in Evanston and music director and choirmaster at Evanston's St. Luke's Episcopal Church -- the festival's first home. 

Paukert left Evanston later that same year, 1974, for a distinguished, award-winning, three-decade career as curator of musical arts at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Since 1979, he has directed the music program at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. His last Bach Week appearance was in 2001.

Webster, an organist and harpsichordist at the first festival, was a Paukert student at NU and his assistant at St. Luke's. Webster has served as the festival's music director and conductor since 1975 and has performed in the festival as organist and harpsichordist. 

Guitarist Adam Levin, an international concert and recording artist, will make his Bach Week Festival debut at a concert scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 4, at the Music Institute of Chicago's Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston. 

A former North Shore resident, Boston-based Levin will perform Bach's Lute Suite in E Major, BWV 1006a, preceded by the "Obsession" movement from Belgian composer Eugène Ysaÿe's Violin Sonata No. 2, from 1924. The movement quotes directly from the Bach suite.

Other Bach works on the May 4 program include two that have never been heard at the festival: the Toccata in E Minor, BWV 915, with harpsichordist Jason Moy; and Flute Sonata in E Major, BWV 1035, with flutist Alyce Johnson and harpsichordist Moy. 

The Bach Week Festival Chorus, under Webster's direction, will sing the motets "Komm, Jesu, komm!," BWV 229, and "Singet dem Herrn," BWV 225. It's rare to find these two monumental motets for double chorus in a single program, Webster says.

The concert, which will air live over WFMT radio, is sponsored in part by the Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany.

"I look forward to this festival each spring," Consul General Onno Hückmann wrote in a letter to Bach Week. "It offers a splendid break from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and reminds me of home. The Bach Week Festival is truly special." 

Festival-goers can immerse themselves in lesser-known versions of Bach keyboard works at the recently added, all-Bach "Candlelight Concert" at 10 p.m. on May 4 in the Nichols Hall lobby featuring harpsichord soloist Jason Moy. 

Titled "Theme and Variations," The Common theme in this case is not a shared musical melody but rather the concept of programming infrequently heard "variants" of Bach works –- Bach's own drafts and alternative versions of movements and works that are "unjustly neglected" and well worth hearing, Moy says.

The program includes the Praeludium & Fughetta in C Major, BWV 872a; Praeludium & Fuga in C Minor, BWV 871; Praeludium & Fuga in G Major, BWV 902/884; Allemande movement from the French Suite in E-flat Major, BWV 815; Cantabile from Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1019a -- to be performed with violinist Dawn Gingrich -- and the Andante from Violin Sonata in A Minor, BWV 964, transcribed for solo harpsichord by Bach.

The festival will conclude with a concert at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 6, at Nichols Concert Hall with a program ranging from a solo violin sonata to an orchestral suite. 

The program offers Bach's Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001, with violinist Robert Hanford, concertmaster of the Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra; Cantata "Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich," BWV 150, never previously heard at Bach Week; Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 in G Major, BWV 1049, with its solo parts for violin and two flutes; and Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C Major, BWV 1066. The Bach Week Festival Orchestra and Chorus will perform, with Webster conducting.

Ticket Information

Single ticket prices for the three main Bach Week Festival concerts (all but the May 4 "Candlelight Concert") are $40 adult general admission, $35 seniors (65+), $25 students with ID, and $10 for children12 and younger. Festival subscriptions for the three main concerts are $105 for adults, $90 for seniors and $60 for students.

Tickets for the "Candlelight Concert" are $20.

Tickets are available at www.bachweek.org or by calling (800) 595-4849. The festival's general information number is (847) 293-6686. 

The Bach Week Festival is the Midwest's premiere Baroque music festival. The event enlists musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, and other top-tier ensembles, while featuring some of the Chicago area's finest instrumental and vocal soloists. 

On the Net:

Bach Week Festival: http://www.bachweek.org

Karel Paukert: http://clevelandartsprize.org/awardees/Karel_Paukert.html

Adam Levin: http://www.adamlevinguitar.com

Jason Moy: http://www.jjmoy.com/Welcome.html

Robert Hanford: http://www.music.northwestern.edu/faculty/profiles/robert-hanford.html

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