All material found in the Press Releases section is provided by parties entirely independent of Musical America, which is not responsible for content.
Press Releases
Chicago’s Bach in the City Announces 2026–2027 Season
October 4: ‘Fantasticus: Bach and Before’ Chamber Concert
at DePaul University’s Allen Recital Hall
January 8: Bach’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’ at St. Vincent de Paul Church
May 14: ‘A Concerto Extravaganza’ at St. Vincent de Paul Church
Associate music director Jason Moy
promoted to co-music director
“Bach in the City fills a glaring gap in Chicago’s early-music scene"
— Early Music America
CHICAGO, July 15, 2026 — Chicago’s Bach in the City, led by Richard Webster and his newly promoted co-music director Jason Moy, has announced the Baroque ensemble’s 2026–2027 concert season.
“It’s a season filled with fresh and unusual repertoire and programming you won’t hear anywhere else in Chicago,” Webster says, “and all performed on period instruments."
Bach in the City’s season opens October 4 with “Fantasticus: Bach and Before,” a chamber concert devoted to works composed in the free-wheeling, improvisational “Stylus Fantasticus” Baroque style that predated J. S. Bach. The program includes music by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bieber, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmüller, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Pachelbel, and J. S. Bach himself, the “youngest” composer in the group.
Bach in the City’s inaugural holiday-season concert will be a January 8 performance of three of the six jubilant and comforting cantatas from J. S. Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” BWV 248.
The season finale on May 14 will be “A Concerto Extravaganza” with concertos by J. S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Antonio Vivaldi. The concert opens and closes with Bach motets that Webster describes as “concertos for chorus.”
“Two superb venues”
“We’re blessed with two superb venues,” Webster says. “For our orchestral and choral programs, St. Vincent de Paul Chuch offers a spacious, luxurious, reverberant acoustic that Bach himself would recognize and appreciate. DePaul University’s Allen Recital Hall is state-of-the-art for intimate, period-instrument chamber music.”
Moy promoted for “invaluable” artistry
Webster, Bach in the City’s founding music director, also announced harpsichordist and early music specialist Moy’s promotion from associate music director to co-music director.
“Jason never ceases to amaze with his thoughtful and imaginative programming,” Webster says, crediting Moy with curating most of the season’s concerts. “His vast musical knowledge, wide connections and respect within the early music community, and talents as harpsichordist and ensemble leader are invaluable.”
October 4 season-opener promises a “Fantasticus” voyage
Bach in the City’s co-music director Moy has mapped out a “Fantasticus” voyage for those attending the “Fantasticus: Bach and Before” period-instrument chamber concert Sunday, October 4, 3 p.m., in DePaul University School of Music’s Allen Recital Hall. 2330 N. Halsted Street. Chicago.
In a program note, Moy cites 17th-century music theorist Athanasius Kircher’s description of Stylus Fantasticus writing as “the most free and unrestrained method of composition…instituted to manifest invention, the hidden design of harmony, and the ingenious composition of harmonic phrases and fugues.”
Moy invites listeners to savor this middle-Baroque period style “through the imaginative and virtuosic works” of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Dietrich Buxtehude, Johann Rosenmüller, Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Pachelbel, and Johann Sebastian Bach.
A highlight will be a rare performance of Pachelbel’s ubiquitous, widely beloved Canon in D Major in its original version for just three violins and continuo (Baroque rhythm section), along with Pachelbel’s oft-neglected Gigue in D Major, a playful, energetic dance piece with which the Canon was originally paired by the composer.
“Some have referred to the Gigue as the ‘B-side’ of the pairing,” Moy says. “But the B-side of a recording sometimes turns out to be the hit song.”
Biber wrote some of the most notoriously difficult, complex violin music of the Baroque era. The concert includes Biber’s Sonata violino solo representativa and Sonata à 6 in C Major, in which the trumpet also gets opportunities to shine.
Violin and viola da gamba are prominent in Buxtehude’s austere, elegant Sonata in A Minor, BuxWV 272, which illustrates the composer’s masterful use of “basso ostinato,” a repeating bass line.
Rosenmüller’s Sonata Decima à 5 in F Major blends strict German Baroque counterpoint with the lyrical, theatrical virtuosity of the Italian Renaissance operas the composer heard during his sojourn in Venice.
Johann Christoph Bach’s masterwork, his deeply moving Lament “Ach, dass ich Wassers gnug hätte” (Oh, if only I had enough tears) for alto soloist, is a profound expression of repentance. He was the older cousin of J. S. Bach, who referred to him as “the profound composer.”
The program, directed by Moy, closes with J. S. Bach’s uplifting sacred cantata “Jauchzet Gott in Allen Landen” (Exult in God in all lands), BWV 51, featuring soprano and trumpet solos.
Soloists are soprano Hannah De Priest, countertenor Ryan Belongie, violinist Amelia Sie, and trumpeter Ryan Berndt.
Bach’s Christmas Oratorio January 8
Bach in the City rings in the New Year with three of the six distinct feast-day cantatas that constitute Johann Sebastian Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, BWV 248. The ensemble will perform Parts I, V and VI, celebrating Christmas Day, the Sunday after New Year’s, and Epiphany.
The concert is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, January 8, at St. Vincent de Paul Church, 1010 West Webster Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614.
Moy says, “From festive trumpets and resounding timpani heralding the birth of the Christ child to moving and contemplative chorales for chorus, Bach’s sacred masterpiece depicts the familiar Christmas story in dramatic fashion.”
Part 1 is celebratory and regal, with the choir exclaiming, “Jauchzet, frohlocket!” (Shout for joy!). Part V, with lush, expressive melodies, depicts the long journey of the three Wise Men. The triumphant and majestic Part VI represents The Adoration of the Magi, ending with a thrilling finale with trumpet melodies woven over the top of a powerful final chorale.
Soloists are Hannah De Priest, soprano; Ryan Belongie, countertenor; Gene Stenger, tenor; and Max Paul Tipton, bass.
Guest concertmaster is violinist Adriane Post.
Richard Webster conducts the Bach in the City Chorus and Orchestra.
Cornucopia of concertos May 14
Bach in the City’s sophomore season concludes with “A Concerto Extravaganza,” a program of instrumental and choral virtuosity, at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 14, at St. Vincent de Paul Church.
This cornucopia of concertos includes double and triple concertos by Bach and his contemporaries, including Bach’s famous Double Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1043.
Bach’s motets are “intricate polyphonic masterpieces and are among his most enduring works,” Moy says.
The Bach in the City Chorus will open the concert with the joyful, energetic motet “Lobet den Herrn” (Praise the Lord), BWV 230, from Psalm 117. They’ll conclude the proceedings with the jubilant double-choir motet “Der Geist hilft” (The spirit comes), BWV 226, on the themes of divine intercession and comfort from suffering.
In addition to Bach’s aforementioned Concerto for 2 Violins, concertgoers will hear Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for 2 Violins and Cello in D Minor, RV 565, from L’Estro Armonico with its nimble interplay between the soloists; Georg Philipp Telemann’s Concerto for 3 Violins in F Major, TWV 53:F1, from Tafelmusik Production II, comprising three contrasting movements, and George Frideric Handel’s Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 6 Nr. 2, HWV 320, a warm and intimate dialog between the group of solo instruments and the larger ensemble.
Soloists include violinists Michael Gurevich, Emily Nebel, and Amelia Sie; and cellists Ana Kim and Cora Swenson Lee.
Richard Webster conducts the Bach in the City Chorus and Orchestra.
Tickets and information
Single tickets for Bach in the City’s 2025–2026 concerts are $45 for VIP admission, which includes reserved seating; $30 adult general admission; $25 seniors 65 and older.
New this season, students with valid ID will be admitted free, except for the October 4 concert at DePaul University’s Allen Recital Hall, for which student tickets will be $10, due to limited seating.
Tickets and information are available at bachinthecity.org and by phone, 312-273-9834.
Bach in the City
Bach in the City is an independent, nonprofit Baroque music organization based at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Chicago. Featuring period instruments, Bach in the City showcases the choral, orchestral, and chamber music of Johann Sebastian Bach and other composers whose music can come to life in the splendid acoustic and visual setting of the historic Lincoln Park church.
“Bach in the City fills a glaring gap in Chicago’s early-music scene,” noted an Early Music America article heralding the ensemble’s 2025-2026 inaugural season.
Founding music director is choirmaster, organist, and composer Richard Webster, who led the former Bach Week Festival for 50 seasons. Co-music director is harpsichordist and early music specialist Jason Moy.
The organization aims to present programs heard nowhere else in Chicago and also create opportunities for audiences to hear talented young professional “stars of tomorrow” from the city’s burgeoning early music scene.
Emblematic of Bach in the City’s artistic vision was its critically acclaimed March 2025 presentation of the Chicago and Midwest premiere of Malcom Bruno’s new reconstruction of J. S. Bach’s lost “St. Mark Passion,” with recitatives and turba choruses composed by Webster.
"The concert was beautiful and moving,” said Third Coast Review. "This was a spiritual experience that was sung and played with passion." Around the Town Chicago proclaimed, “Bach’s work no longer lived in the past but was suddenly made brand new and charismatic.” Chicago Classical Review said, "Kudos to Bach in the City” for “a fine performance of an intriguing Bach work rescued from oblivion.”
# # #
Bach in the City 2026–2027 Season
“Fantasticus: Bach and Before”
October 4, 2026, 3 p.m.
Holtschneider Performance Center
Allen Recital Hall
2330 N. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60614
“Bach: Christmas Oratorio”
January 8, 2027, 7:30 p.m.
St. Vincent de Paul Church
1010 West Webster Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614
“A Concerto Extravaganza”
May 14, 2027, 7:30 p.m.
St. Vincent de Paul Church
1010 West Webster Avenue
Chicago, IL 60614
Tickets and information:
https://www.bachinthecity.org
*Photo credit: Igor Dymo
Press contact:
Nat Silverman
Nathan J. Silverman Co. PR
nat [at] njscompany [dot] com
Office tel: 847-868-1417
FEATURED JOBS
RENT A PHOTO
