Applause at the Bach Festival could be a little louder this year as BW welcomes three alumni back to campus who will be performing as celebrated artists, and six student soloists receive an exceptional first-time-ever opportunity.
The Baldwin Wallace 94th Bach Festival, presented with generous support from the Kulas Foundation, will be held April 17-18. Tickets are on sale now, and some events will be live streamed.
Dr. Dirk Garner, artistic director of the Bach Festival, has been sharing his vision of the acclaimed event for 12 years. Each year, he finds innovative ways to meld the beloved music of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contemporaries with something new to enhance the audience experience.
Among the many special additions to this year's Festival are student soloists for the concluding choral work, Bach's Magnificat. For the first time in the history of the Festival, most of the soloists will be BW students.
"At the heart of the Bach Festival is the student experience," said Garner. "For decades, our students have sat side by side with their teachers in the orchestra for performances of the Festival's major works."
"This tradition continues today for both our instrumentalists and soloists, who prepared their arias alongside our guest artists. It is a remarkable model of shared music-making," stated Garner.
Building on the extraordinary platform of student opportunities is a performance by BWV: Cleveland's Bach Choir, which will feature four selected students from the Baldwin Wallace Motet Choir who were invited to sing alongside BWV.
"This opportunity is truly unique for undergraduate students, as similar experiences are only at the graduate level at a handful of elite institutions," explained Garner. "For the four students, they are introduced to professional-level consort singing while also making important career contacts."
Friday night's Concerto Countdown will feature Bach's dazzling concerti for four, three and two harpsichords, performed by alumni Dylan Sanzenbacher '20 and Logan Rees '24 together with current and former faculty members Jason Aquila and Qin Ying Tan.
In addition, the Festival will include the virtuosic vocal chamber ensemble AMPERSAND, which was founded by BW alumna Madelaine Healey '11. Music for that performance will be drawn from the unique holdings of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute Library and will feature works that may not have been performed since their original debut over 300 years ago.
The Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival — the oldest collegiate Bach festival in the nation — is a pinnacle event of historic and monumental significance. It was founded in 1932 by professor Albert Riemenschneider (longtime director of the BW Conservatory) and his wife, Selma. The Baldwin Wallace Festival Choir and Orchestra presented the first Bach Festival in June 1933. BW has performed annual Bach Festivals ever since.
Major Festival performances are held in BW's historic Kulas Musical Arts Building, built in 1913 with the support of E.J. and Fynette Kulas, who were also active in sponsoring the early Bach Festivals at BW.
