Funfgeld-C06c[Analekta-CD].Pdf

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Funfgeld-C06c[Analekta-CD].Pdf The Bach Choir of Bethlehem The Bach Festival Orchestra Greg Funfgeld, conductor / chef Julia Doyle, soprano The Bertha-Mae Starner Endowed Chair Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano The Shirley J. Wotring Endowed Chair Daniel Taylor, countertenor / contre-ténor The Mrs. Robert S. Taylor Endowed Chair Benjamin Butterfield, tenor / ténor The Leonard & Sandra Ashford Endowed Chair Daniel Lichti, bass-baritone / baryton-basse The Bill & Ursie Fairbairn Endowed Chair Instrumental Soloists Robin Kani and Linda Ganus, flutes / flûtes Mary Watt and Cheryl Bishkoff, hautbois / oboes Continuo Loretta O’Sullivan, cello / violoncelle Stephen Groat, double bass / contrebasse Charles Holdeman, bassoon / basson Charlotte Mattax Moersch, portativ organ / orgue portatif Thomas Goeman, organ / orgue 3 The Bach Choir of Bethlehem The oldest American Bach Choir, The Bach Choir documentary on the Choir, Make a Joyful Noise. of Bethlehem gave the first complete American In addition to the annual Bethlehem Bach performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in 1900 Festival, the concert season in Bethlehem and Christmas Oratorio in 1901. Since its founding includes Christmas and Spring Concerts; a Family in 1898, the now-famous Choir has been attracting Concert; Bach at Noon–a series of free concerts in thousands of visitors from across the United the historic Central Moravian Church; and Bach States and beyond to the annual Bethlehem Bach to School, an outstanding educational outreach Festival in Pennsylvania. Since 1983, under Greg program that has now been presented to more Funfgeld’s passionate and experienced direction, than 75,000 children. Mr. Bach Comes to Call, the 100 dedicated volunteer singers of The Bach a film based on the acclaimed Classical Kids CD, Choir of Bethlehem, performing with the Bach was produced by The Bach Choir of Bethlehem Festival Orchestra and distinguished soloists, in collaboration with Touchstone Theatre and have received international acclaim. Venues have GreenTreks Network in 2007. It has been broadcast included the Herkulessaal at Munich’s Royal nationally on PBS and is distributed internationally Residence and the Thomaskirche, Bach’s church by The Children’s Group. in Leipzig, as part of the 1995 Germany tour; the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall as part Greg Funfgeld, of The Choir’s Centennial Celebration in 1999-2000; Artistic Director and Conductor a performance for the BBC Proms in London’s Greg Funfgeld has been artistic director and con- Royal Albert Hall as part of an eight-concert tour ductor of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem since of the United Kingdom in 2003; and a perform- 1983. He has expanded the programs of The Bach ance as part of the 75th anniversary of the Choir beyond the annual Bach Festival to become Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival in Severance Hall, a year-round season of 31 concerts and educa- Cleveland, in 2007. tional programs with an audience of more than 20,000. Mr. Funfgeld led The Choir on two major The Choir has released five recordings of Bach concert tours, to Germany in 1995 and the United works, in addition to the popular four-volume Kingdom in 2003. He also directed The Choir's Christmas in Bethlehem. This recording is the Centennial performances at the Kennedy Center Choir’s first for Analekta, Canada’s premiere and Carnegie Hall. Commissioned works during classical recording company. The Choir has been Mr. Funfgeld’s tenure have included Libby Larsen’s featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Cantata I It Am–The Shewings of Julian of Today and Prairie Home Companion, Deutsche Norwich, co-commissioned with the BBC Proms, Radio, the BBC World Service, CBS Sunday and Stephen Paulus’ A Dream of Time, commis- Morning, and the Emmy award-winning PBS sioned in honor of Funfgeld’s 25th anniversary with 4 The Bach Choir. Under Mr. Funfgeld’s leadership, Enlightenment) and Cadogan Hall (The King’s The Choir has released five recordings of major Consort); Handel and Bach arias at Wigmore Hall; works by Bach as well as the popular four-volume Bach’s Saint John Passion and Magnificat at Christmas in Bethlehem. Media projects have venues throughout Europe including the included the Emmy award-winning PBS documen- Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, and Verona and Pisa tary on The Bach Choir, Make a Joyful Noise, and Cathedrals; Purcell’s The Fairy Queen in Salzburg’s a film version of Classical Kids’ award-winning CD Mozarteum; Mass in B Minor with the Northern Mr. Bach Comes to Call that aired nation-wide Sinfonia in DeSingel Concert Hall, Antwerp, on PBS. Mr. Funfgeld is a member of the advisory and at St. John’s, Smith Square, London (Purcell board of The American Bach Society. He also serves Singers); Mozart’s Mass in C Minor in Southwark as the director of music at First Presbyterian Cathedral (London Handel Orchestra); Purcell’s Church of Bethlehem. He is a 1976 graduate of Dido and Aeneas at Wigmore Hall; and a highly Westminster Choir College, where he studied acclaimed recording of Lutoslawski’s Dwadziescia under Dr. Joseph Flummerfelt. In 1986, he received Koled (BBC Symphony Orchestra). Future perfor- the Alumni Merit Award for excellence in musical mances include Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms; performance. In 2007, Mr. Funfgeld was awarded Geoffrey Bush’s Christmas Cantata and Ariel an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Ramirez’ Navidad Nuestra in St. Machar’s Lehigh University in recognition of his musical Cathedral with the Aberdeen Bach Choir; accomplishments locally, nationally, and interna- Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610 at The Bridgewater tionally. Hall; a tour of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion in the Netherlands; and two European tours of Julia Doyle, soprano Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Julia Doyle was born in the North of England, and earned a choral scholarship to Cambridge Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano University before pursuing a career in singing. Rosa Lamoreaux is an award-winning vocalist Ms. Doyle is fast establishing a reputation as with a busy international career and is known for a soloist, specializing in the Renaissance and her “wonderfully rich timbre and an amazingly Baroque periods, both in the UK and across flexible voice” (Washington Post). She is regularly Europe, and enjoying a career as a soloist and featured at the Bethlehem Bach Festival and ensemble singer with many of Europe’s most is recognized for her beautifully styled readings distinguished conductors and ensembles. Recent of repertoire from Hildegard von Bingen to highlights include Handel’s Messiah at Symphony Shostakovich. After winning the Handel Aria Hall, Birmingham (Orchestra of the Age of Competition at the Aspen Music Festival, her 5 career has taken her to Carnegie Hall, the ensembles, appearing in opera (Metropolitan Kennedy Center, and in Europe to the BBC Proms Opera, Glyndebourne, San Francisco, Rome, in Royal Albert Hall with The Bach Choir of Welsh National Opera, Canadian Opera, and Bethlehem, the Carmel Bach Festival, Rheingau Munich), oratorio (Gabrieli Consort, Monteverdi Music Festival, and La Fenice Chamber Music Choir/English Baroque Soloists, Bach Collegium Festival. A popular chamber music performer, Japan, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Les Arts she sings with the Folger Consort, ArcoVoce, and Florissants, Berlin Akademie für Alte Musik, Hesperus, and has toured with Musicians from Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Academy Marlboro. In 2007, Ms. Lamoreaux appeared with of Ancient Music), symphonic works (Cleveland, the Folger Consort, singing excerpts from Purcell’s Philadelphia, Toronto, Rotterdam, Montreal), The Fairy Queen in a collaboration with Derek recital (Vienna Konzerthaus; Forbidden Concert Jacoby and Lynn Redgrave reading from Hall, Beijing; and Wigmore Hall, London), and film A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Also in 2007, (Podeswa’s Five Senses for Fineline-winner at she performed a review of the music of Ivor Cannes). Taylor is the founder and artistic director Novello at the Jermyn Street Theatre in London. of the Theatre of Early Music, a period instrument Among her many recordings, her newest CD ensemble based in Montreal comprised of musi- is Montmartre Cabaret I–a recital designed for cians from all over the world. He is also artistic the Exhibit of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec at the director of the Music Festival at St. Sauveur and a National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. She visiting professor at McGill University. Taylor has enjoys teaching and has given master-classes made more than 65 recordings, including Bach for such institutions as Princeton University, Cantatas with English Baroque Soloists, Bach Michigan State, and the Smithsonian Institution. Collegium of Japan, and The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Daniel Taylor, countertenor Daniel Taylor is one of the most sought-after Benjamin Butterfield, tenor countertenors in the world and recognized as Benjamin Butterfield has been described as a “Canada’s star countertenor.” His debut at “musically arresting presence” by the San Glyndebourne in Handel’s Theodora was greeted Francisco Chronicle. His stage appearances with critical praise and followed on his operatic include performances with Il Teatro di San Carlo debut in Jonathan Miller’s production of Handel’s in Naples, Welsh National Opera, the Canadian Giulio Cesare at the Metropolitan Opera. He Opera Company, New York City Opera, receives invitations from an ever-widening circle of Glimmerglass Opera Festival, and Canterbury the world’s leading early and contemporary music Opera in New Zealand. In concert he has 6 appeared in Britten’s War Requiem with the formed at Teatro dell’ Opera di Roma, L’Opéra de London Symphony Chorus and the State Montréal, and Toronto’s Opera in Concert. Recent Orchestra of Thessaloniki, and in the Saint highlights have included Beethoven’s Ninth Matthew Passion with the Philharmonia Baroque Symphony at the Feria de las Artes Sinaloa Orchestra. He has toured throughout Europe with in Mexico, a recital of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Trevor Pinnock and the English Concert, the RIAS Liederbuch, John Estacio’s The Houses Stand Kammerchor of Berlin, and Les Musiciens du Not Far Apart with the Grand Philharmonic Choir, Louvre.
Recommended publications
  • Bach Notes 29
    No. 29 Fall 2018 BACH NOTES NEWSLETTER OF THE AMERICAN BACH SOCIETY BACHFEST LEIPZIG 2018: CYCLES A CONFERENCE REPORT BY YO TOMITA achfest Leipzig listening experience. B2018 took place There was an immensely from June 8–17 with warm and appreciative at- the theme “Zyklen” mosphere in the acoustic (Cycles), featuring space once owned and ex- works that can be ploited to its full by Bach grouped together, for himself almost 300 years instance collections ago. To me this part of the of six or twenty-four Bachfest was a resound- pieces, numbers with ing success. It will be long potential biblical sig- remembered, especially by nificance, or works the fully packed exuberant that share formal or audience at the tenth and stylistic features. In the final concert of the addition, this year’s Kantaten-Ring on June festival presented 10 in the Nikolaikirche, something quite ex- where the Monteverdi traordinary: nearly all Choir and English Ba- the main slots in the John Eliot Gardiner in the Nikolaikirche (Photo Credit: Leipzig Bach Festival/Gert Mothes) roque Soloists directed by first weekend (June 8–10) were filled by a vocal works from the sixteenth and seven- series of concerts called “Leipziger Kantat- teenth centuries. This arrangement exposed en-Ring” (Leipzig Ring of Cantatas), which the stylistic differences between Bach and In This Issue: looked like a festival of Bach cantatas within his predecessors, prompting us to consider the Bachfest. (Its own program book, at why and how Bach’s musical style might Conference Report: Bachfest Leipzig . 1 351 pages, was three times thicker than the have evolved, a precious moment to reflect entire booklet of the Bachfest!) Altogether on Bach’s ingenuity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bach Choir of Bethlehem's Christmas Concert, a Review And
    The Bach Choir of Bethlehem’s Christmas Concert, a Review and Interview with Music Director Greg Funfgeld—to Air on Christmas Day at 8pm on WWFM by Michael Miller , December 24, 2014 2014 Christmas Concerts My soul doth magnify the Lord The Bach Choir of Bethlehem J.S. Bach – Cantata 147: Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mind and Works and Life) Robert Parsons – Ave Maria Charles Villiers Stanford – Magnificat in G Daniel Gawthrop – Mary Speaks C.P.E. Bach – Magnificat in D Saturday, December 6, 2014 at 8 pm First Presbyterian Church of Allentown Sunday, December 7, 2014 at 4 pm First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem Greg Funfgeld conducting. Photo 2014 Theo Anderson. Greg Funfgeld, Music Director of the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, kindly met with me the afternoon before their two-concert series of Christmas Concerts, the first in Allentown, PA, the second in the First Presbyterian Church in Bethlehem. We repaired to what is actually a prayer room to chat, and you will hear little if anything of the lively activity that was going on around us. He spoke about the tradition of Bach in Bethlehem, performance practice, their annual Bach Festival, which will take place in May of this coming year for the 108th time and of the distinguished scholars he invites to speak there, along with the cantatas, the chamber and orchestral music, and of course, their traditional performance of the Mass in B Minor, which received its first complete performance in America there on March 27, 1900. Audio Player Podcast: (Duration: 24:30 — 33.7MB) http://newyorkarts.net/2014/12/bach-choir- bethlehem-christmas-concert-review-interview-greg-funfgeld/ In early November New Yorkers had an opportunity to learn a striking lesson in Bach tradition from a pair of concerts, that of the Academy of Ancient Music and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra— authentic instruments, one player to a part, standing, and led from the harpsichord vs.
    [Show full text]
  • American Choral Review
    AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN CHORAL FOUNDATION, INC. VOLUME XII · NUMBER 2 • APRIL, 1970 AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW ALFRED MANN, Editor ALFREDA HAYS, Assi.rtant Editor Associate Editors BoWARD TATNALL CANBY ANDREW C. MINOR RICHARD F. FRENCH MARTIN PICKER RICHARD JACKSON JACK RAMEY The AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW is published quarterly as the official journal of the Association of Choral Conductors sponsored by the American Choral Foundation, Inc. The American Choral Foundation also publishes a supplementary Research Memorandum Series and maintains a Choral Library, administered by the Free Library of Philadelphia and coordinated with the Drinker Library of Choral Music. Membership in the Association of Choral Conductors is available under the following arrangements: Full Membership privileges, for an annual membership contribution of $15, including a subscription to the AMERICAN CHoRAL REVIEW, a subscription to the Research Memorandum Series, unlimited use of the American Choral Foundation Library at mailing cost, use of the Drinker Library of Choral Music on a rental basis, and unlimited use of the Foundation's Advisory Services Division. Publications Membership privileges, for an annual membership contribution of $12, including a subscription to the AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW, and a subscription to the Research Memorandum Series. Participating Membership privileges, for an annual membership contribution of $7 .50, including a subscription to the AMERICAN CHORAL REVIEW and unlimited use of the American Choral Foundation Library and the Drinker Library of Choral Music on a rental basis. Single issues of the AMERICAN CHoRAL REviEW are available to members at $1.25 a copy. Single issues of the Research Memorandum Series are available to members at $1.
    [Show full text]
  • Bach Choir of Bethlehem Announces 2020- 21 'Season of Grace'
    Bach Choir of Bethlehem announces 2020- 21 ‘Season of Grace' By CRAIG LARIMER THE MORNING CALL | AUG 18, 2020 AT 4:18 PM Artistic Director and Conductor Greg Funfgeld will lead the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for the final time this season. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem has announced its 2020-21 “Season of Grace,” which will celebrate the leadership and career of retiring Artistic Director and Conductor Greg Funfgeld. The Choir has planned a series of virtual performances and hopes to pivot to live concerts — to mark the 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival — as soon as it is able, according to a news release. This is Funfgeld’s 38th and final season with the choir. “In the midst of uncertainty and much that remains unknown, I offer you this pledge — we will sing again!” Funfgeld said in the release. “We have the will to do it — we will be patient, will persevere, will be careful, thoughtful and mindful of the guidelines from experts and the government ... The human voice is a miracle and a marvel — it expresses the most profound thoughts and beauty, carries the heart and soul of the singers to the heart and soul of the listeners and create a bond that is life-giving, uplifting, sustaining.” This season also marks the final one for Executive Director Bridget George, who’s been with the choir for 24 years. “In spite of the heartbreak of our choristers not yet being able to rehearse together, there is a great deal of optimism about the musical connections we are making this season through our virtual Moments of Comfort and Bach at Noon Watch Parties, as well as outside choral rehearsals and recordings to prepare for a virtual Christmas production full of the joy of the season,” George noted in the release.
    [Show full text]
  • Bach Notes No. 8
    No. 8 Fall 2007 BACH NOTES THE NEWSLETTER OF THE AMERICAN BACH SOCIETY PERFORMING BACH’S MASS IN B MINOR SOME NOTES BY HEINRICH SCHENKER* JAN-PIET KNIJFF The Oster Collection of the New York Public Library contains the major portion of Heinrich Schenker’s Nachlass. Included in this collection are documents related to Schenker’s work on Bach’s Mass in B Minor, the most prominent of which is a review of a performance by the Berlin Singakademie under its music direc- tor Georg Schumann in Vienna on 27 October 1926.1 The Oster Collection also contains six voice-leading graphs of sections of the Mass—two of the opening ritornello of the “Christe” and four others representing the openings of four consecutive move- Schenker’s hand, though likely prepared ments of the “Symbolum Nicenum,” from a different sketch, now lost. The fair ALSO IN THIS ISSUE namely, the “Et in unum,” “Et incarnatus copy is written on manuscript paper, 104 est,” “Crucifixus,” and “Et resurrexit.” mm x 250 mm in size, with three music Although Schenker discussed aspects of staves. The top staff contains a “high- P. 14. Book Review: the Mass in B Minor in Kontrapunkt level” background sketch, and the two Music and Theology: Essays in (1910) and later in Der freie Satz (1935),2 lower staves a more detailed sketch of the Honor of Robin A. Leaver the 1926 essay and these six graphs, musical fore- or middle-ground. by Mark A. Peters which probably also date from the sec- 16. 15th Biennial Meeting of the ond half of the 1920s, are by far his most The “Christe” graph in Schenker’s hand Society important contributions to the study of and the graphs of the “Et in unum,” this work.
    [Show full text]
  • Bach Festival
    VIRTUAL 113TH BETHLEHEM BACH FESTIVAL Members of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem & Bach Festival Orchestra Greg Funfgeld, Artistic Director & Conductor with guest Soloists & Lecturer Dr. Peter Wollny, Paul Taylor Dance Company May 14 & 15, 2021 Thank you to our sponsors! The Bach Choir gratefully acknowledges our Guarantors and the principal sponsors of the 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival. Principal Sponsors KEYSTONE SAVINGS FOUNDATION Individual Sponsors Ifor Jones Chamber Music Concert Blessings & Benediction Concert Harold G. & Allison Black Helen Davis (Paul Taylor Dance Company) John & Terry Hare David & Carol Beckwith (Flute Sonata) Leon & June Holt Memorial Fund Bach at 4 Concert Anonymous In memory of Kenneth & Shirley Wotring Corinne MacLennan-Kennedy In loving memory of her mother Corinne M. Kennedy The Bach Choir is profoundly grateful for the newly established endowment fund for Bach at 4 from the estate of Rev. Arthur R. Lillicrapp. The Bach Choir is supported in part by th VIRTUAL 13 1 2021 FMayestiv 14–15 • Premiering on aWFMZ.COMl Greg Funfgeld Artistic Director & Conductor The Marjorie Wright Miller Memorial Chair Sherezade Panthaki, Soprano The Bertha-Mae Starner Endowed Chair Meg Bragle, Mezzo-Soprano The Mrs. Robert Sayre Taylor, Jr. Endowed Chair In memory of Elizabeth Taylor Halliwell Founded in 1898 Lawrence Jones, Tenor by J. Fred Wolle The Leonard & Sandra Ashford Endowed Chair In memory of his parents, Leonard & Eleanor Ashford and in honor of her mother, Ragnhildur Eiðsdóttir Dashon Burton, Baritone The Ursie & Bill Fairbairn Endowed Chair In memory of his parents, Mary Elizabeth Latham & W. Todd Fairbairn, Jr. with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem & Bach Festival Orchestra Paul Taylor Dance Company Special thanks Live Streaming & Video Production – WFMZ-TV/MBC-Teleproductions Audio Engineers – John Baker & Sam Ward Additional Video Production – Zoellner Arts Center Bethany United Church of Christ, Bethlehem St.
    [Show full text]
  • Viewing the Boston and Bethlehem Premieres in Comparison to Mendelssohn’S Performance of the St
    Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2017 J. S. Bach's Passions in Nineteenth-Century America Alannah Rebekah Taylor Follow this and additional works at the DigiNole: FSU's Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MUSIC J. S. BACH’S PASSIONS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA By ALANNAH REBEKAH TAYLOR A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music 2017 Alannah Rebekah Taylor defended this thesis on March 29, 2017. The members of the supervisory committee were: Sarah Eyerly Professor Directing Thesis Charles E. Brewer Committee Member Michael Broyles Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii Dedicated to my loving, supportive family, and to the One for whom the Passions were composed. Soli Deo Gloria. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my incredibly supportive family. My parents have read countless drafts and offered loving critiques throughout my entire educational process. My brothers, Trip and Micah, have listened to endless conversations and random facts about my research, all without questioning my sanity. My grandparents have always been thrilled to hear about my progress and my current research interests. Most of all, I would like to thank each of them for their prayers and unconditional love for me. I would like to acknowledge Dr. Jonathan Saylor, who encouraged me to pursue musicology and inspired my love for music history through his obvious passion for the subject.
    [Show full text]
  • BACH at NOO a Gift of Music & Spiritual Refreshment
    Members of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem e{ Boch Festival Orchestra Greg Funfgeld, Artistic Director e{ Conductor present BACH at NOO A Gift of Music & Spiritual Refreshment March 8,2011 - PROGRAI'| Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in G Minor, Opus 5, No. z BHB Adagio sostenuto e espressivo - Allegro molto piil tosto presto So loists Rondo Allegro Ros a Lamor eaux, sopr an o - B arbara H ollinshead., alto - Loretta O'Su11ivan, cello, Greg Funfgeld, piano Greg Oa.ten, tenor Johann Sebastian Bach Cantata BWV z3 Duwahrer Gottund Davids Sohn (Cantata for Estomihi - The Sunday before Lent) The March Bach at Noon concert is named in _,L honor of the blrthday ofJohann Sebastian Bach on zr March, by Dr. Albert & Ingrid May, long-time rN Guarantors ofThe Choir, and residents of Marion, RAC}I is supported in part by their generous CHOIR Ohio, and of Bethlehem endowment gift. '{r0r}' ,ffi* Cantata BWV z3 | Duwahrer Gottund Davids Sohn (Cantata for Estomihi) W97 Transtation by Ettis Finger, Director of the williams center for the Arts, Lafayette college 5+€a l. Aria (Soprano and Alto Duet) Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, You true God and David's Son, der du von Ewigkeit in der Entfernung schon who evenfrom thefor reochcs ofetemity mein Herzeleid und meine Leibespein have gazed upon my sorrowful heort umstdncllich angesehn, erbarm dich mein! and my tnornl pain, have merc'y on me! Und lass durch deine Wunderhand, And. gront through your wondrous hand, die so viel Btises abgewandt, that has fended of such great wil, mir gleichfalls Hilf und Tiost geschehen! that help and solace be ollattrd olso to mt.
    [Show full text]
  • View Program Description
    Program Description Thank you for your interest in the summer Institute for School Teachers, “Johann Sebastian Bach and the Music of the Reformation Churches.” The Institute is hosted by Moravian College and is funded by the National Endowment for Humanities. The institute will take place Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, home of the first Bach Choir in the United States. The NEH institute participants, also designated as NEH Summer Scholars, will arrive on Sunday, June 25, 2017, and leave after noon on Friday, July 21, 2017. The first day of the Institute is Monday, June 26, 2017. Each summer scholar will receive a stipend of $3300. All stipends are taxable and intended to defray project expenses. The primary focus of this Institute is to understand the intellectual and musical worlds of J. S. Bach. In addition, taking as points of departure the 600th anniversary of the death of one of the first pre-Reformation martyrs associated with the Moravian Church, Jan Hus (d. 1415), and the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Lutheran Reformation with the nailing of 95 Theses on the door of the church of Wittenberg (1517), this Institute will explore the music of the Lutheran church (particularly Bach’s) and other 18th century Reformation churches and examine its reflection of both societal and religious changes. Participating teachers from a wide variety of disciplines will gain a deeper understanding of Bach's musical universe and a more profound awareness of the various approaches to interpreting his music and setting it in context. If this topic interests you, we welcome you to sit back and take some time to read this letter.
    [Show full text]