Bach Festival | Baldwin Wallace University

Schedule: Schedule as of October 31, 2019; subject to change
* = Rain Location: Lindsay-Crossman Chapel
$ = Tickets Required (See TICKETS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS section below.)
FRIDAY, APRIL 24
Open House
Noon-2:30 p.m.
Riemenschneider Bach Institute, Boesel Musical Arts Center
Featuring a display of rare items from the vault.
Bach & Composers of the Future
1:30-2:45 p.m.
Lobby, Boesel Musical Arts Center
Pairs of BW student composers and pianists collaborate on short new piano pieces in the style of Bach. Come hear the sounds of future composers!
Master Class
3:00-4:15 p.m.
Kadel Family Vocal Music Hall, Boesel Musical Arts Center
Molly Quinn, soprano
Hailed by The New York Times for her "radiant sweetness."
Colony Room Buffet Dinner ($)
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Strosacker Hall
Food Trucks
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Seminary Street across from Lindsay-Crossman Chapel
Enjoy innovative eats at a picnic table during the Festival Brass. Food provided by the Manna Food Truck and the Sweet! Mobile Cupcakery.
RBI Student Scholar Presentation
4:30-5:30 p.m.
Fynes Hall, Kulas Musical Arts Building
2019-2020 RBI Scholar Rachel Fogle '21 (Keyboard Performance/Music History) will present her research on the RBI's collection of first-edition Beethoven piano sonata scores.
Composer Chat
6:00-6:30 p.m.
Fynes Hall, Kulas Musical Arts Building
RBI 50th Anniversary Composition Contest winner Dr. James Primosch discusses his work in preparation for the premiere at 7 p.m.
Festival Brass
6:15 p.m.
Marting Hall Tower*
BWV: Cleveland's Bach Choir ($)
7:00 p.m.
Gamble Auditorium, Kulas Musical Arts Building
BWV performs the premiere of the composition by RBI 50th Anniversary Commission Contest winner Dr. James Primosch. Conducted by Dr. Dirk Garner.
BWV 2020:
Margaret Haigh, soprano
Sarah Hawkey, soprano
Madeline Healey, soprano
Andrew Cooper, alto
Kate Maroney, alto
Caroline Olsen, alto
Steven Bradshaw, tenor
Brandley King, tenor
John Russell, tenor
John Buffett, bass
John Cooper, bass
Adam Simon, bass
SATURDAY, APRIL 25
Lecture
9:00-10:15 a.m.
Fynes Hall, Kulas Musical Arts Building
Presented by Dr. Robin A. Leaver, General Editor of the Yale Journal of Music & Religion, visiting honorary professor at Queen's University Belfast, visiting professor at Yale University and emeritus professor of sacred music at Westminster Choir College.
Master Class
10:30-11:45 a.m.
Fynes Hall, Kulas Musical Arts Building
Bradford Gleim, baritone
Praised as a "robust voluminous baritone" by The Boston Musical Intelligencer.
Chamber Music ($)
2:00 p.m.
Gartner Auditorium/Cleveland Museum of Art
An afternoon of chamber music with BW Faculty/Cleveland Orchestra members Daniel McKelway, Lembi Veskimets, Charles Carleton and Factory Seconds Brass Trio (Jack Sutte, Jesse McCormick and Rick Stout).
Festival Brass
6:15 p.m.
Maltz Patio
St. Matthew Passion ($)
7:00 p.m.
Maltz Performing Arts Center
Performed by the BW Motet Choir and Festival Orchestra and Westminster Choir, conducted by Dr. Joe Miller, director of Choral Activities at Westminster Choir College.
St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
Steven Soph, Evangelist
Bradford Gleim, Jesus
Molly Quinn, soprano
Kate Maroney, alto
Steven Caldicott Wilson, tenor
Sumner Thompson, baritone
BW Motet Choir
Westminster Choir
BW Festival Orchestra
Dr. Joe Miller, conductor
SUNDAY, APRIL 26
Bach Service
11:15 a.m.
The United Methodist Church of Berea
BW Singers
Marc Weagraff, conductor
Tickets and Subscriptions: 2020 Subscription Pricing:
Includes 3 Concerts: Friday, April 24 at 7 p.m. at Baldwin Wallace; Saturday, April 25 at 2 p.m. at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at 7 p.m. at the Maltz Performing Arts Center.
Available beginning Monday, February 3 only by calling the BW ticket office at (440) 826-8070.
Family: $160/145/120
Public: $175/160/135
2020 Single Ticket Pricing:
Available beginning Monday, March 2.
Friday, April 24 at 7 p.m. – BWV: Cleveland’s Bach Choir at Baldwin Wallace: available by visiting bw.edu/tickets or by calling the BW ticket office at (440) 826-8070.
Saturday, April 25 at 2 p.m. – Chamber Music at the Cleveland Museum of Art: available by visiting bw.edu/tickets or by calling the BW ticket office at (440) 826-8070.
Saturday, April 25 at 7 p.m. – St. Matthew Passion at the Maltz Performing Arts Center: available by visiting case.edu/maltzcenter/buy-tickets or by calling the Maltz PAC at (216) 368-6062.
Friday, April 24 at 7 p.m.
Family: $50/42/34
Public: $60/52/44
Saturday, April 25 at 2 p.m.
Family: $50/42/34
Public: $60/52/44
Saturday, April 25 at 7 p.m. (St. Matthew)
Family: $75/67/59
Public: $80/71/62
(Family = alumni, faculty, staff or family of current student)
Saturday Bus to University Circle
$20/rider
Available beginning Monday, March 2 by visiting bw.edu/tickets or calling (440) 826-8070.
Let us do the driving and parking! A charter bus will depart Berea for University Circle at 12:30 p.m. Guests will attend both the 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. concerts (please purchase tickets separately) with dinner on your own in between. Additional details will be provided in advance.
Group Discounts
Groups of 10 or more can take advantage of a 25% discount off subscription prices or single tickets. For additional ticket and group information, please call the Conservatory Events Office at (440) 826-8070 or email bachfest@bw.edu.
Waiting List for Single Tickets
Should a concert be sold out, you may add your name to the waiting list for tickets to an individual concert. Waiting list patrons will be contacted by phone as tickets become available. Please contact the Conservatory Events Office at (440) 826-8070 or email bachfest@bw.edu to place your name on a waiting list.
Join Our Mailing List: You can request to be added to the Bach Festival mailing list by contacting the Conservatory events office at (440) 826-8070, emailing bachfest@bw.edu or filling out our online form.
About the BW Bach Festival: The Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival – the oldest collegiate Bach festival in the nation – 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, and we've been performing annual Bach festivals ever since. In the current era, the festival is evolving to include year-round events, like Bach Haus, that explore Bach's influence on a broad spectrum of music.
Baldwin Wallace performing groups are joined by faculty members and professional musicians in the three-day, multi-event program. Soloists are internationally known artists; the lecturers, distinguished Bach and Baroque scholars. Our students consider the unusual opportunity of participating, as colleagues, with world-class professionals a high point in their performing experience.
Beginning with the 43rd festival in 1975, the festival performing groups have been reduced to sizes now known to be more in line with those employed in Bach's time. Likewise, from 1975 on, all vocal works have been sung in the language of their origins. These changes have made possible the cultivation of a truly Baroque sound with inherent clarity, drive and intensity.
With a repertoire list that includes more than 300 compositions by J. S. Bach, as well as selected works from 52 other composers, the Festival rotates Bach's four major choral works on a four-year cycle. In this way, BW students are exposed to all four of the major Bach choral works during their college years; the B-minor Mass, the St. Matthew and St. John Passions, and the Christmas Oratorio.
Bach Festival Reviews
Various clevelandclassical.com reviews
BW Bach Festival highlighting saxophone, returning to roots on 86th annual event (preview) - Cleveland.com
MUSIC REVIEW: Baldwin Wallace Bach Fest - Cool Cleveland
MUSIC REVIEW: Kenari Quartet at Baldwin Wallace - Cool Cleveland
MUSIC REVIEW: Bach Festival @BaldwinWallace - Cool Cleveland
Bach Festival at Baldwin Wallace concludes with hair-raising 'St. Matthew Passion' - The Plain Dealer
Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival Concert One (April 15) - clevelandclassical.com
Why Bach?: By Dr. Melvin Unger
Many would say it is the lucidity of Bach's music – the consummate integration of its structural elements – that makes it so great. Bach was unsurpassed in his ability to grasp (intuitively it seems) the possibilities of a melodic or harmonic idea, and to work these out in coherent, yet expressive ways. His music functions equally well on both horizontal and vertical planes – as a series of simultaneous melodic strands and as a progression of chords. It brings competing impulses into equilibrium: the logical and the mystical, the sonic and the symbolic. It constantly surprises the listener with its inventiveness.
While using as its starting point the harmonic language, compositional techniques and rhetorical figures of its day, it moves far beyond them. Bach's style is characterized by a richness of chromatic language, a logic of thematic unfolding and an overlay of hermeneutical (interpretive) allusions. It is no wonder that succeeding composers held him in such awe. Robert Schumann put it well: "Wir sind alle Stumper gegen ihn" (Next to him we are all plodders).
Repertoire List Since 1933: Presenting a comprehensive picture of Bach's creative genius is one of the chief objectives of the Baldwin Wallace Bach Festival. View a list of works performed on Festival programs since its inception in 1933.