BEREA, OH (Baldwin-Wallace College) - As much a harbinger of spring as the first crocus, is the Baldwin-Wallace College Bach Festival which will celebrate its 74th year April 21 and 22.
The festival, begun by the late Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory Director and celebrated organist Albert Riemenschneider and his wife Selma in 1933 is the oldest and most prestigious collegiate Bach Festival in the country. It was Albert and Selma's passion for music, B-W and the Cleveland area that made them believe a Festival of this magnitude would be a valuable addition to college life and musical offerings in the Cleveland area.
"At the Festival, Baldwin-Wallace students are joined by several faculty members, local professional musicians and internationally known artists," said B-W Conservatory director Catherine Jarjisian. "Our students consider the incredible opportunity of participating as colleagues with world-class professionals like Tamara Matthews, Ellen Rabiner, Frederick Urrey, William Sharp and Kevin Deas a high point in their performing and collegiate experience."
While the focus is on Bach, over the years the festival presentations have included the works of more than 70 other composers as well. The featured work this year will be Bach's St. John Passion. Another highlight of this year's festival is the first regional performance of the newly discovered manuscript of a sacred aria by Bach. Found in 2005 in Weimar, Germany, the aria, Alles mit Gott and nichts ohn' ihn, BWV 1127, will be performed by soprano Tamara Matthews on the Friday evening concert.
Friday's opening concert of the Festival will feature music from the Aston Magna Early Music Ensemble with Sharon Baker, soprano; Nancy Wilson, baroque violin; Loretta O'Sullivan, baroque cello; and Peter Sykes, harpsichord. Friday evening's concert will feature the Magnificat in D Major, BWV 243.
A Saturday morning lecture recital entitled "Rhetoric and Bach's 'Art of Fugue'" will feature organist Todd Wilson and lecturer Adel Heinrich. Wilson, a former B-W faculty member, is director of music and organist at the Church of the Covenant. The curator of the Norton Memorial Organ at Severance Hall, Wilson also is the chairman of the Organ Department at The Cleveland Institute of Music. Lecturer Adel Heinrich is a native Clevelander and an organist who received her doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has written Organ and Harpsichord Music by Women Composers. She also has had several articles published in the Bach Journal.
Saturday afternoon's performance of the St. John Passion will begin at 3 p.m. and continue, uninterrupted, except for a brief intermission. All of the soloists will be familiar to Bach regulars. Tamara Matthews, soprano, new to the Festival last year, returns this year. Ellen Rabiner, mezzo-soprano; William Sharp, baritone; and Kevin Deas, bassbaritone will perform, as well as Bach Festival veteran soloist Frederick Urrey as the evangelist.
On Friday afternoon at 2:00 pm, the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (RBI) will host an Open House to showcase the collection of valuable materials and manuscripts entrusted to the B-W Conservatory by the Riemenschneider, Martin, David and Villella families. The Institute was created to preserve and enhance Baldwin-Wallace College's distinctive and internationally recognized tradition of cultivating the music of J.S. Bach, and to provide Conservatory students with exemplary models of musicological research and scholarly resources needed for their academic development.
Also on Friday afternoon at 3:45 pm, the longstanding tradition of the B-W Brass Choir performing from the cupola of Marting Hall (weather permitting) will signal the commencement of the 74th Festival.
For more information about the Festival visit https://www.bw.edu/academics/libraries/bach or call (440) 826-2207.
Baldwin-Wallace College is a private, liberal arts based Methodist-related college offering bachelor's and master's degrees, certificates and professional education programs located in Berea, Ohio - a residential community located 20 minutes from Cleveland. The Conservatory of Music at Baldwin-Wallace is an artistic community within a liberal arts college, in which the lives of students of all ages are transformed in pursuit of personal and professional excellence through the humanizing discipline of music study, creation, performance and pedagogy.
