2018 Arizona Bach Festival Comes To Phoenix

Arizona Bach Festival returns for its 9th annual season of four inspiring, transcendent performances of the music of Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Performances are at All Saints' Episcopal Church and Central United Methodist Church in central Phoenix from January 12-27. All concerts include a pre-concert lecture. Tickets are $23 in advance or $25 at the door (student discounts available). A season pass to all four concerts is $80. Find more information and purchase tickets at arizonabachfestival.org/tickets/.
The Festival opens on Friday, January 12 with world-renowned organist Dexter Kennedy in recital.
Praised for his "prodigious technique and grand style musicality" in The American Organist, Kennedy won the Grand Prix d'Interprétation at the 24th Concours International d'Orgue de Chartres, serves on the music faculty of The College of Wooster (Ohio) and is currently a guest instructor at Oberlin College and Conservatory. He earned degrees from Yale and Oberlin.

A week later, on Friday, January 19, soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg performs solo cantatas with mezzo-soprano Karen Knudsen Stanley. The program features oboist Martin Schuring in a concerto for oboe d'amore.
Schuring held positions with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and The Phoenix Symphony before joining the faculty of Arizona State University in 1992. He teaches, records, publishes and performs internationally as a soloist and as a member of the Ocotillo Winds.
Stoppelenburg sang as part of the Young Opera Ensemble of Cologne and frequently performs in Europe, the United States, South America and the Middle East as an oratorio soloist and as half of the duo Unique Harmony of Two Voices.

Stanley has performed with Music Director Scott Youngs for previous Arizona Bach festivals, also collaborating with the Phoenix Chorale, The Phoenix Symphony, Apollo Master Chorale, the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, True Concord Voices & Orchestra (formerly Tucson Chamber Artists), the St. Cecilia Music Series of Austin, Texas, and the Kansas City Chorale.

In celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, conductor Scott Youngs leads Arizona Bach Festival's orchestra and choir in two of the four Lutheran Masses (or Missa Brevis) on Sunday, January 21. Each Mass includes the Kyrie and the Gloria in Latin, drawing material from Bach's earlier cantatas

Pianists Stephanie Ho and Saar Ahuvia collaborate as DUO Stephanie and Saar for the Festival's final concert on Saturday, January 27, featuring Bach's The Art of Fugue for piano four hands. The married duo's recordings include The Art of Fugue, Beethoven Dialogues (three of Beethoven's quartets in four-hand arrangements), and György Kurtág's transcriptions (Bach Crossings). The New York Times praised DUO Stephanie and Saar for "beautifully understated performances," and International Piano Magazine recognized the duo's "precision and elegant phrasing." Ho and Ahuvia are the artistic directors of the Makrokosmos Project, a new music festival in Portland, Oregon.

2018 ARIZONA BACH FESTIVAL PERFORMANCES
? Friday, January 12 at 7:30 p.m. (Pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m.) All Saints' Episcopal Church, 6300 N. Central Ave., Phoenix
Organist Dexter Kennedy in recital

? Friday, January 19 at 7:30 p.m. (Pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m.) Central United Methodist Church, 1875 N. Central Ave., Phoenix

Oboist Martin Schuring, mezzo-soprano Karen Knudsen Stanley and soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg perform solo cantatas and a concerto for oboe d'amore

? Sunday, January 21 at 3 p.m. (Pre-concert lecture at 2:00 p.m.) All Saints' Episcopal Church, 6300 N. Central Ave., Phoenix

Lutheran Masses BWV 235 and 236 featuring conductor Scott Youngs with the Arizona Bach Festival Orchestra and Choir

? Saturday, January 27 at 7:30 p.m. (Pre-concert lecture at 6:30 p.m.) Central United Methodist Church, 1875 N. Central Ave., Phoenix

DUO Stephanie and Saar play The Art of Fugue on piano four hands

Tickets are $23 in advance or $25 at the door (student discounts available). A season pass to all four concerts is $80. Find more information and purchase tickets at arizonabachfestival.org/tickets/. About Arizona Bach Festival: Originating from the seven-year American Bach series offering Bach's cantatas in concert, the Arizona Bach Festival is now a separate 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which presented its first Festival in 2010. The mission of the Festival is to inspire, educate, preserve, and elevate the appreciation of Bach as a transcendent force, through the highest caliber of performances. The Arizona Bach Festival is supported by the American Guild of Organists, the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Central United Methodist Church, 89.5 FM KBACH, Camelback Bible Church and All Saints' Episcopal Church. Learn more at arizonabachfestival.org/

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