PERFORMANCE

About the Spring Season

Following the success of the Bach Interactions digital concert series, the Bach Consort ushers in Spring 2021 with three live performances broadcast directly to you. The Consort is pleased to present these concerts from three iconic Washington churches: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Saint Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Cathedral, and the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America.

Spring Season

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES

Devotion & Contemplation
Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75

Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 8 p.m. on YouTube
Recorded at The Franciscan Monastery

Dieterich Buxtehude (c.1637/39–1707)
Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75

Soloists:

Margot Rood

Margot Rood
soprano

Sara MacKimmie
soprano

Reginald Mobley
countertenor

Jacob Perry, Jr.
tenor

Jonathan Woody
bass

MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE
The North German composer Dieterich Buxtehude (c.1637/39–1707) was held in such high reverence by the 20-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach that he walked 250 miles from Arnstadt to Lübeck to hear the great organist/composer. Membra Jesu nostri is an exquisite cycle of seven short cantatas, each a contemplation of a different part of the body of Christ. Derived from a thirteenth-century poem, the work evinces a vast spectrum of divinely inspired emotion and introspective beauty.

Read the Program Notes

Vocalists:
Margot Rood & Sara MacKimmie, sopranos; Reginald Mobley, countertenor; Jacob Perry, Jr., tenor; Jonathan Woody, bass

Instrumentalists:
Julie Andrijeski David McCormick, violins; Amy DominguesJohn MoranLeslie Nero & Niccolo Seligmann, violas da gamba; Jessica Powell Eig, viola da gamba & violone; Adam Pearl, organ

Watch

Devotion & Contemplation
Membra Jesu nostri, BuxWV 75

PAST PERFORMANCES

Wade Davis
cello

Bach’s Cello Suites
Performed by Wade Davis

Thursday, March 25, 2021 at 8 p.m. on YouTube
Recorded at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009

MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

Read the Program Notes

Composed early in Bach’s career, the Cello Suites give us some of the most recognizably intimate and expressive music today. For most cellists, these works are the gold standard of artistic expression and technical achievement. In this special performance, Wade Davis brings insight and depth of interpretation to two of these works, beginning with the Fifth Suite in C minor, which he plays on the Baroque cello according to the original scordatura tuning prescribed for the work. The program concludes with the jubilant and uplifting Third Suite in C major.

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Bach's Cello Suites
Performed by Wade Davis

Polyphonic Splendors of the Iberian Renaissance

Thursday, April 22, 2021 at 8 p.m. on YouTube
Michael McCarthy, Guest Conductor
Recorded at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral

Cristóbal de Morales (c.1500–553)
Vicente Lusitano (d. after 1561)
Francisco Guerrero (1528–1599)
Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548–1611)

MORE ABOUT THE PERFORMANCE

Michael McCarthy
Guest Conductor

More heavenly than earthly, the polyphonic vocal works of sixteenth-century Spain and Portugal offer a uniquely beautiful landscape of musical color and contrapuntal flair. Works by four great composers will be featured, particularly Vicente Lusitano (d. after 1561), who was of Portuguese and African descent. Lusitano penned a very important treatise on music theory, Introdutione facilissima et novissima de canto fermo (Rome, 1553), and composed numerous, elegant motets for the church, printed in his Liber primus epigramatum (Rome, 1551). In this program, Lusitano takes his rightful place among the greatest polyphonic masters of the Iberian Renaissance.

Vocalists:

Katelyn AungstSara MacKimmie, Margot Rood & Laura Choi Stuart, sopranos; Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury & Kristen Dubenion-Smith, altos; David Evans, Patrick Kilbride, Matthew Loyal Smith Jacob Perry, Jr., tenors; Edmund Milly & Jason Widney, basses

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