Season Farewell: The Most Ambitious Project Friday, May 24, 8PM & Saturday, May 25, 3PM Bachgrounder lecture 35 minutes before each performance Sonoma Bach Choir · Live Oak Baroque Orchestra Directed by Robert Worth and Amanda McFadden Schroeder Hall, Green Music Center Rohnert Park
In 1724, a year after he moved to the city of Leipzig, Bach embarked upon the largest project of his long and storied career: The creation of a unified annual cycle of chorale cantatas for the church year. For the1723–24 season, he had cobbled together a cycle of diverse cantatas, mixing some works from his years in Weimar with Anonymous, View of West Side of Thomasschule, Leipzig (1732) new cantatas. The new cycle was to be unified around the chorale cantata, in which each entire piece was built around a single Lutheran chorale. In the event, he composed some 42 of these for the cycle, adding 8 more in later years. We will voyage through this vast trove of fabulous music by performing a series of triptychs, each made up of the bare chorale melody; the grand opening movement; and the final chorale.
Susan and Neil Silverman Photography
The Sonoma Bach Choir is a group of about 50 gifted singers drawn from throughout Sonoma County. The Sonoma Bach Choir specializes in the music of the Baroque period, with special emphasis on Johann Sebastian Bach; members and audiences alike thrill to the constant inventiveness and incredible degree of feeling in Bach's music.
Live Oak Baroque Orchestra is Sonoma Bach’s resident instrumental ensemble. Led by Baroque violin sensations Elizabeth Blumenstock and Aaron Westman, LOBO brings sumptuous tone and breathtaking flair to the one-on-a-part string-band repertoire of the 17th Century. Experience Baroque music at its finest—passionately performed by some of the country’s finest and most charismatic period instrumentalists, right here in Sonoma County.
