45th Annual Bach Week Festival to Open April 27 in Evanston, Ill.

The 45th annual Bach Week Festival, with concerts April 27 and 29 in Evanston, Ill., and May 4 in Chicago, will feature new twists on presenting music by the event’s namesake, German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

“Each season, we go ‘Bach’ to the drawing board to keep the festival fresh while remaining true to our mission,” says Richard Webster, Bach Week’s long-time music director and conductor. Webster performed in and helped organize Evanston’s inaugural Bach Week in 1974 and has been music director since 1975.

The festival will host its first world premiere of a new work when Chicago Symphony Orchestra cellist Katinka Kleijn performs Marcos Balter’s “Ensuite,” a multi-movement work based on J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites. Kleijn, whom the New York Times calls “a player of formidable expressive gifts,” commissioned the piece for her Bach Week Candlelight Concert solo recital, scheduled for 10 p.m. on April 27. The work will include movements from various Bach Cello Suites and new movements composed by Balter in response to Bach’s music.

Fresh off an international duo-recital tour with his superstar student Daniil Trifonov and solo appearances with orchestras in Germany and Italy, pianist Sergei Babayan of the Cleveland Institute of Music will return for another installment in his traversal of Bach’s complete single keyboard concertos. He’ll give an opening-night performance of the Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052.

Evanston’s Robert Sullivan, professor of trumpet at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, will make his Bach Week Festival debut April 27 in Bach’s cantata “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” BWV 51, which demands virtuosic trumpet playing in its opening and closing movements.  Soprano soloist will be Dutch-born singer Josefien Stoppelenburg of Wilmette, Ill.

Sullivan has served as principal trumpet of the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops Orchestras, assistant principal trumpet of the Cleveland Orchestra, and associate principal trumpet of the New York Philharmonic. Since moving to the Chicago area, Sullivan frequently performs with the Chicago Symphony, the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, and the Chicago Philharmonic.

Stoppelenburg, who made her Bach Week debut in 2017, performs with the Rembrandt Chamber Players, Boulder Bach Festival, Cincinnati Bach Ensemble, Peoria Bach Festival, and Camerata Amsterdam, among many other collaborations.

Bookending the opening-night program will be a pair of distinctly different Brandenburg Concertos. The Third Concerto is scored for strings with harpsichord accompaniment, while the Fifth Concerto features major roles for flute, violin, and harpsichord.

Pianist Babayan will perform a solo recital April 29 with a selection of Preludes and Fugues from Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book I, BWV 846-869, and Mozart’s Piano Sonata in A Minor, K. 310, and Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 332.

Bach’s festive church cantata “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” BWV 191, which contains echoes of the Gloria from his monumental Mass in B Minor, will receive its first-ever Bach Week performance at the festival finale May 4 in Chicago — in an unusual staging. Between the first and second movements, where Bach’s score indicates a break for a sermon, concert-goers will hear violinist Desirée Ruhstrat, a founding member of the Grammy-nominated Lincoln Trio, play Bach’s Partita in D Minor, BWV 1004.

Music of Bach’s contemporary Georg Philipp Telemann will be heard in the same program. Telemann’s Concerto in D Major for Three Trumpets, Two Oboes, Timpani, Strings and Basso Continuo, TWV 54:D3, employs instrumentation similar to that of Bach’s cantata. “Listeners will experience strikingly different approaches to the same musical forces,” Webster says. “Bach loved complex counterpoint, while Telemann favored simpler melodies.”

The concert will open with what Webster describes as a "double-header" featuring the hymn tune "St. Anne." First, the choir will sing the hymn "O God, Our Help in Ages Past," by English Baroque composer William Croft, with text by Isaac Watts, based on Psalm 90. Then, Webster will perform J.S. Bach's organ Fugue in E-flat Major ("St. Anne"), BWV 552, which uses a remarkably similar melody.

The finale concert also offers a richly textured, choral tour-de-force: Bach’s motet “Singet dem Herren,” BWV 225, for double choir accompanied by cello, bass violin, and harpsichord.

The 2018 festival is a partnership between the Bach Week Festival and North Park University’s School of Music, Art, and Theatre.
 
2018 Bach Week Festival Schedule

Friday, April 27, 7:30 p.m.
Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston
45th Annual Opening Night
 
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No 3 in G Major, BWV 1048
J.S. Bach: Cantata “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” BWV 51
J.S. Bach: Keyboard Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052
J.S. Bach: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D Major, BWV 1050

Sergei Babayan, piano
John Macfarlane, violin
Jason Moy, harpsichord
Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano
Robert Sullivan, trumpet
Marie Tachouet, flute

Bach Week Festival Chamber Orchestra
Richard Webster, conductor

Friday, April 27, 10 p.m.
Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston
Candlelight Concert with Katinka Kleijn
World Premiere of Marcos Balter’s “Ensuite”

Katinka Kleijn, cello

Sunday, April 29, 3 p.m.
Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston
Sergei Babayan Piano Recital: Bach and Mozart

J. S. Bach: Selections from “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book 1, BWV 846–869
W. A. Mozart: Piano Sonata in A Minor, K. 310; Piano Sonata in F Major, K. 332

Sergei Babayan, piano

Friday, May 4, 7:30 p.m.
Anderson Chapel, North Park University
5149 N. Spaulding Ave., Chicago
Bach’s Glorious Cantata 191
 
William Croft (music, “St. Anne”)/Isaac Watts (words, Psalm 90): “O God, Our Help in Ages Past”
J.S. Bach: Fugue in E-flat Major for organ ("St. Anne"), BWV 552
Georg Philipp Telemann: Concerto in D Major for Three Trumpets, Two Oboes, Timpani, Strings, and Basso Continuo, TWV 54:D3
J.S. Bach: Cantata “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” BWV 191, with Bach’s Partita in D Minor, BWV 1004, for unaccompanied violin.
J.S. Bach: Motet “Singet dem Herren,” BWV 225

Klaus Georg, tenor
Rosalind Lee, soprano
Jason Moy, keyboard
Desirée Ruhstrat, violin
Richard Webster, organ
North Park University Chamber Singers
Members of Bella Voce
Bach Week Festival Chorus and Orchestra
Richard Webster, conductor

Tickets and information

Single-admission tickets to each of the three main concerts are $30 for adults, $20 seniors, $10 students. Subscriptions to the main concerts are $80 for adults, $50 for seniors, and $20 for students. All tickets for the April 27 Candlelight Concert are $20. Tickets can be purchased online at bachweek.org or by phone, (800) 838-3006. For general festival information, phone 847-269-9050 or email info@bachweek.org.
 
The 2018 Bach Week Festival is supported by The MacArthur Funds for Arts and Culture at The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, and the Elizabeth F. Cheney Foundation.