We close the season with our signature work, Bach’s great Mass in B Minor. Among the greatest musical compositions in any tradition, Bach’s masterwork has been for countless audiences a limitless reservoir of comfort and a balm for the soul.

Paulina Francisco, soprano; Elijah McCormack, soprano; Roger O. Isaacs, countertenor; Kyle Stegall, tenor; Mischa Bouvier, bass

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Running time: 150 minutes, including intermission

Join us for Talking Bach at 3 p.m. The series of free pre-concert lectures by noted Bach scholar, Michael Marissen, are presented one hour before Director’s Series performances. Learn More»

The Honorable & Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, underwriters

Vocalists:

Sonya Headlam, soprano; Patrick Dailey, countertenor; Dann Coakwell, tenor; Jonathan Woody, bass

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Running time: 180 minutes, including intermission

Join us for Talking Bach at 2:45 p.m. The series of free pre-concert lectures by noted Bach scholar, Michael Marissen, are presented one hour before Director’s Series performances. Learn More»

Shannon & Jim Davis, Tamera Luzzatto, and Charles Reifel & Janie Kinney, underwriters

Vocalists:

Elijah McCormack, soprano; Kristen Dubenion-Smith, alto; Jacob Perry, Jr., tenor; Enrico Lagasca, bass

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Running time: 140 minutes, including intermission

Join us for Talking Bach at 6 p.m. The series of free pre-concert lectures by noted Bach scholar, Michael Marissen, are presented one hour before Director’s Series performances. Learn More»

Mary Ann Gardner, Hope P. McGowan, and National Endowment for the Arts, underwriters

Amy Broadbent, soprano; Clifton Massey, countertenor; Matthew Loyal Smith, tenor; Jonathon Adams, bass; Jason Widney, bass

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Running time: 120 minutes, including intermission

Sally Wells and Dorothy B. Wexler, underwriters

To begin our 45th season, we unveil a world premiere from critically acclaimed composer, Trevor Weston. A New Song, finds our period instruments and voices on a fresh canvas of creation, bringing together and transforming perspectives of musical past, present, and future. Winner of the Arts and Letters Award in Music, and a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Trevor Weston is among the most highly sought-after composers today. Completing the program will be J.S. Bach’s dramatic secular cantata, Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wilbenden Winde, BWV 201.

Momus: Sherezade Panthaki, soprano
Mercury: Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, alto
Tmolus: Jacob Perry, Jr., tenor
Midas: Patrick Kilbride, tenor
Phoebus: Paul Max Tipton, bass
Pan: Ian Pomerantz, bass

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This performance is supported by generous gifts from the J. Reilly Lewis Legacy Fund, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Trevor Weston’s music has been called a “gently syncopated marriage of intellect and feeling” (Detroit Free Press). Weston’s honors include the George Ladd Prix de Paris from the University of California, Berkeley; the Arts and Letters Award in Music; a Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and residencies from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and Castle of our Skins at the Longy School of Music. Weston co-authored with Olly Wilson, the fifth chapter in the Cambridge Companion to Duke Ellington, Duke Ellington as a Cultural Icon, published by Cambridge University Press. His work Juba for Strings won the Sonori/New Orleans Chamber Orchestra Composition Competition. In 2021, he won the first Emerging Black Composers Project sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony.

Weston’s Flying Fish, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its 125 Commission Project and the American Composers Orchestra, was described as having, “episodes of hurtling energy, the music certainly suggested wondrous aquatic feats. I was especially affected, though, by an extended slower, quizzical episode with pensive strings and plaintive chords” (New York Times). The Boston Landmarks Orchestra commissioned Griot Legacies for choir and orchestra, a work created with four innovative arrangements of African American Spirituals. Griot Legacies demonstrates Weston’s “knack for piquant harmonies, evocative textures, and effective vocal writing” (Boston Globe). The Grammy-nominated Choir of Trinity Church Wall Street recorded an album of Weston’s choral works. The Bang on a Can All-Stars premiered Weston’s composition Dig It, commissioned by the group for the Ecstatic Music Festival in NYC.

Dr. Weston is currently Professor of Music and Chair of the Music Department at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, and an instructor for the MAP and Pre-College programs at the Julliard School.

Bach’s St. Matthew Passion is thought by many to be his most profoundly crafted work—perhaps his magnum opus. Some even see it as one of the greatest musical compositions of all time. Its musical architecture alone has been praised for centuries. Above all, our Consort musicians live to perform it! Falling into obscurity after Bach’s lifetime, it was reintroduced by Felix Mendelssohn in 1829 at the head of the modern Bach revival. With its deeply expressive rhetorical gifts, it is an experience that will remain in your memory long after the performance has ended.

Rufus Müller, Evangelist
Jonathon Adams, Christus
Elijah McCormack, soprano
Katelyn Aungst, soprano
Reginald Mobley, countertenor
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, alto
Matthew Hill, tenor
Jacob Perry, Jr., tenor
Mischa Bouvier, bass
David Rugger, bass

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Running time: 190 minutes, including intermission

The Honorable & Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, underwriters

Daniel S. Lee, Guest Director & violin; Tatiana Chulochnikova* & Carmen Johnson-Pájaro*, violins; Risa Browder & Isaiah Chapman, violas; John Moran, violoncello; Jessica Powell Eig, violone; Colin St-Martin, flute; Daphna Mor, recorder; Geoffrey Burgess*, oboe & oboe d’amore; Margaret Owens*, oboe; Josh Cohen*, trumpet; Leon Schelhase*, harpsichord

soloists*

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Running time: 120 minutes, including intermission

Glen S. Fukushima, underwriter

The leading center of 17th-century sacred music—the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice—could boast chief musicians such as Giovanni Gabrieli and Claudio Monteverdi. Gabrieli inspired the German-born Heinrich Schütz and other composers north of the Alps to adapt the Venetian style to the liturgies of German-speaking churches. We’ll hear examples of this impressive, grand tradition as it developed both north and south of the Alps, with multiple ensembles of singers, early brass, winds, and strings. This magnificent music creates a spectacular sound world of its own—a feast for the ears!

Vocalists:

Crossley Danielle Hawn, Sara MacKimmie & Elijah McCormack, sopranos; Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury & Kristen Dubenion-Smith, altos; Andrew Bearden Brown & Matthew Loyal Smith, tenors; Mark Duer & Edmund Milly, basses

Instrumentalists:

Julie Andrijeski & Allison Monroe, violins; John Moran, Leslie Nero & Niccolo Seligmann, violas da gamba; Jessica Powell Eig, violone; Nigel North & Dušan Balarin, theorbos; Kelsey Schilling, dulcian; Bruce Dickey & Alexandra Opsahl, cornettos; Greg Ingles, Liza Malamut, Mack Ramsey & Erik Schmalz, trombones; Paula Maust, organ

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Running time: 120 minutes, including intermission

Tamera Luzzatto, underwriter

The Washington Bach Consort brings an enduring European Christmas tradition to America every year—Bach’s Christmas Oratorio—the ultimate musical experience of the holiday season. Add to this the splendor of the Music Center at Strathmore and you’ve found yourself in the perfect occasion! The Washington Post raved about 2019’s “splendid,” “joyful” performance. Our chorus sang with a “bright, forthright sound, its phrasing as word-responsive as its blend was polished and supple.” Chorus and orchestra were together praised as “a tight and responsive group”—one that “could go head-to-head with period ensembles anywhere.” Join us for our return to Strathmore!

Vocalists:

Laura Choi Stuart*, Katelyn G. Aungst, Susan Lewis Kavinski, Sara MacKimmie, Margot Rood & Kate Vetter Cain, sopranos; Robin Bier*, Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, Derek Greten-Harrison, Barbara Hollinshead, Sylvia Leith & Meghen Miles Tuttle, altos/countertenors; James Reese* Evangelist, Andrew Bearden Brown, David Evans, Patrick Kilbride, Matthew Loyal Smith, Robert Petillo & Jason Rylander, tenors; Enrico Lagasca*, Joshua Brown, Mark Duer, Karl Hempel, Edmund Milly & Jason Widney, basses 

Instrumentalists:

Andrew Fouts†, Marlisa del Cid Woods, Gail Hernández Rosa, Natalie Rose Kress, Leslie Nero, violins I; Tatiana Chulochnikova, Chiara Fasani Stauffer, Caroline Levy, Annie Loud & David McCormick, violins II; Risa Browder, Marika Holmqvist, Scott McCormick & Marta Howard, violas; John Moran & Wade Davis, violoncellos; Jessica Powell Eig & Patricia Ann Neely, violones; Colin St-Martin & Kathryn Roth, flutes; Geoffrey Burgess, Margaret Owens, Fatma Daglar & Sarah Schilling, oboes, oboes d’amore, oboes da caccia; Anna Marsh, bassoon; Brad Tatum & Kenneth Bell, horns; Josh Cohen, Jason Dovel & Dennis Anthony Ferry, trumpets; Michelle Humphreys, timpani; Leon Schelhase, harpsichord; Adam Pearl, organ

soloists*
concertmaster†

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Running Time: approximately 165 minutes including intermission

Mary Ann Gardner, Stephen C. Wright & Thomas Woodruff, Hope McGowan, and National Endowment for the Arts, underwriters

Vocalists:

Katelyn G. Aungst, Amy Nicole Broadbent*, Crossley Danielle Hawn*, Susan Lewis Kavinski, Margot Rood & Laura Choi Stuart, sopranos; Kristen Dubenion-Smith, Roger O. Isaacs & Clare McNamara*, altos; Brian Giebler,* Matthew Hill & Patrick Kilbride, tenors; Mark Duer, Paul Max Tipton* & Jason Widney, basses

Instrumentalists:

Andrew Fouts†, Tatiana Chulochnikova, Gail Hernández Rosa & Leslie Nero, violins; Risa Browder & Scott McCormick, violas; John Moran & Wade Davis, violoncellos; Jessica Powell Eig, violone; Colin St-Martin & Kathryn Roth, flutes; Paula Maust, organ

soloists*
concertmaster †

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Running Time: approximately 120 minutes including intermission

Shannon & Jim Davis and Anonymous Donor, underwriters

Bach’s musical account of the Christmas story remains a cherished tradition every year not only in Germany, but throughout Europe. We invite you to join us as the Consort inaugurates its annual observance of the same tradition in DC this season! You’ll hear five of the six cantatas that comprise the composer’s epic Weihnachts-Oratorium, thrillingly delivered by the Consort musicians and soloists.

Elijah McCormack, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, alto
Rufus Müller, tenor and evangelist
Steven Combs, bass

Running time: 155 minutes including intermission

Mary Ann Gardner, underwriter

You’ll feel like royalty when the Consort’s vocalists and instrumentalists serenade you with exquisite music composed for Kings and Queens. 1727 was a banner year for such outpourings. Bach’s now rarely performed Trauerode (BWV 198) was first heard at a memorial service for the Electress of Saxony and nominal Queen of Poland, Christiane Eberhardine. Further afield in England, George Frideric Handel composed a set of enthralling anthems for the coronation of King George II, introduced by his celebrated work loved by today’s audiences, “Zadok the Priest.”

Margot Rood, soprano
Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, alto
Aaron Sheehan, tenor
Jonathan Woody, bass

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Claire & Pierre Wagner, underwriters

The feasts of Easter and Ascension are significant events in the Christian calendar, celebrating the day when Jesus rose from the dead and the day that he entered heaven. J.S. Bach’s magnificent oratorios demonstrate his versatility, juxtaposing the full force of the orchestra and chorus in expressions of unbridled joy with more intimate music conveying Jesus’s sacrifice for humankind.

Katelyn G. Aungst, soprano
Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, mezzo-soprano
Matthew Hill, tenor
Richard Giarusso, baritone

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Running Time: approximately 90 minutes including intermission

The Honorable & Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, underwriters

During Bach’s lifetime, opera was flourishing in Italy. Composers including Antonio Vivaldi were exploring new musical techniques, producing vocal and instrumental works full of energy and drama. Discover why Bach was so inspired by the music of his Italian contemporaries in a concert featuring soprano Laura Choi Stuart and the Consort orchestra.

Laura Choi Stuart, soprano

Running Time: approximately 110 minutes including intermission

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Rosemary Monagan, underwriter, in memory of her sister Molly Patricia Pierce

This holiday season, join the Consort for a performance of seasonal motets, including J.S. Bach’s masterful work for double choir Komm, Jesu, Komm! This concert will display the virtuosity of the Consort’s acclaimed chorus as they perform motets by Bach and other Baroque masters of the form.

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Deutsche Telekom, underwriter

Join the Consort as we celebrate the opening of our 41st season and welcome our new Artistic Director. Bach’s cantata for the New Year, Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied, is a joyous outpouring of gratitude. Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day is Handel’s magnificent tribute to the patron saint of music set to text by John Dryden. Dryden’s unique vision of the creation story, centered on music, is one in which nature springs to life and is brought to order after hearing “the tuneful voice on high.” Bach’s joyful Magnificat is the concert finale. This iconic masterpiece features some of Bach’s most thrilling and tuneful music.

Amy Broadbent, soprano
Rebecca Kellerman, soprano
Roger O. Isaacs, countertenor
Kyle Tomlin, tenor
Steven Combs, baritone

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Tamera Luzzatto & David Leiter and Shannon & James Davis, underwriters

One of the crowning glories of Bach’s career and considered by many the Consort’s trademark piece, the Mass in B Minor is a work that is truly in a class by itself. Completed during the last years of the composer’ s life, the Mass brings together a range of techniques and musical forms that offer both a compendium of Baroque style and of Bach’s own lifework. Ending the celebration of the Consort’s 40th anniversary, it stands among that rarified category of masterpieces that are truly inexhaustible and forever new.

Gwendolyn Toth is the director of ARTEK, an early music ensemble acclaimed for its recording of Monteverdi’s opera Orfeo. She is a harpsichordist and organist who performs and records regularly on historic organs of the Netherlands.

Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Rebecca Kellerman, soprano
Roger O. Isaacs, countertenor
Matthew Hill, tenor
Mark Duer, baritone

Anonymous Donor, underwriter

Bach never wrote an opera, but as with many “what-ifs” in the history of art, it is tantalizing to speculate on what an opera by Bach might look and sound like. His St. John Passion offers perhaps the best insight into Bach’s “operatic” style. This action-packed treatment of the Passion story stands in marked contrast to the more contemplative St. Matthew Passion. Most notably, the rapid-fire dialogue that punctuates the piece reveals an instinct for dramatic pacing that would have been the envy of Mozart or Verdi. Paired with some of the composer’s most poignant arias, the St. John Passion is a musical and dramatic experience unlike anything else.

Matthew Dirst is the founder and artistic director of Ars Lyrica Houston, a Grammy-nominated period-instrument ensemble that specializes in Baroque chamber and dramatic works. An award-winning harpsichordist, organist, and conductor, he is also professor of music at the University of Houston, where he is a member of the musicology faculty in the Moores School of Music.

Robert Petillo, Evangelist
Jason Widney, Christus
Katelyn G. Aungst, soprano
Barbara Hollinshead, alto
Matthew Loyal Smith, tenor
Steven Combs, baritone

The Honorable & Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, underwriters

None of Bach’s holiday music is better known or more beloved than the Christmas Oratorio. Compiled by Bach for Christmas celebrations in Leipzig in 1734-5, his narrative account of the Christmas story is placed within some of his most lavish and varied writing for chorus, soloists, and orchestra. With its thrilling passages for trumpets and timpani, gentle lullabies, dramatic arias, ornate instrumental solos, and rousing choruses, the Christmas Oratorio captures the full range of emotions associated with this joyous season.

Praised by the Los Angeles Times as “an energetic and persuasive conductor,” and by the New York Times as “a powerful and expressive countertenor” Dana Marsh has performed and recorded extensively worldwide. With a doctorate in historical musicology from the University of Oxford (UK), he has held tutorial positions and a fellowship at Oxford and Cambridge Universities respectively. In 2016, Marsh was appointed director of the Historical Performance Institute at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.

Kate Vetter Cain, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, mezzo-soprano
Robert Petillo, tenor
Steven Combs, bass

Mary Ann Gardner, underwriter

The Consort opens its 40th season with a program celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation—a movement that ushered in a seismic shift in Western thought and shaped the culture in which Bach’s genius would flourish. The program features three of Bach’s “Reformation” cantatas, each one a gem in its own right. Taken together, they offer a fascinating glimpse into the range of Bach’s achievement as a composer of Lutheran sacred music. The grandest of Bach’s four orchestral suites, including some of the composer’s liveliest instrumental music, rounds out this celebratory program.

Conductor, singer, and musicologist Richard Giarusso is artistic director of the Voce Chamber Singers in northern Virginia and the Georgetown Chorale in DC. He also serves as chair of the Department of Musicology at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

Amy Nicole Broadbent, soprano
Chris Dudley, countertenor
Patrick Kilbride, tenor
Mark Duer, bass

Tamera Luzzatto & David Leiter and Shannon & James Davis, underwriters

This performance begins the five concert audition process to select the next Bach Consort Artistic Director with Todd Fickley conducting Handel’s immortal oratorio. Arguably the most famous choral piece by any composer, Messiah has been a staple in this country at Christmastime but is equally appropriate for Easter. The Consort closes its season with this rare opportunity to hear the orchestra and chorus perform Handel’s most beloved and enduring masterpiece.

Native Washingtonian, conductor, pianist, harpsichordist, and organist Todd Fickley is the acting artistic director of the Consort. He holds an MA in organ performance from the University of Wales and is a fellow of the AGO. He has performed at the Kennedy Center and across the US, Europe and Israel, and has been featured with the NSO and Washington Ballet. His recordings have been critically praised as “some of the most enthralling Bach organ playing you are likely to hear anywhere by anyone.”

Suzanne Karpov, soprano
Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, alto
Kyle Tomlin, tenor
Steven Combs, bass

Kenneth Slowik, Guest Conductor

The Consort returns to Bach’s towering masterpiece, one of the greatest pieces of sacred music ever created. Originally composed to frame a Good Friday sermon, the narrative relates the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus and features some of Bach’s most inspired and spiritual music. The guest conductor for this performance is Kenneth Slowik, artistic director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society. Like his friend Dr. J. Reilly Lewis, Slowik has had a life-long involvement with the music of Bach, as cellist, harpsichordist and conductor.

Robert Petillo, Evangelist
Christòpheren Nomura, Christus

Jolle Greenleaf, soprano
Luthien Brackett, mezzo-soprano
Aaron Sheehan, tenor
Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

The Venetian antiphonal style of Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli was the inspiration behind several German masters, including Heinrich Schütz, Samuel Scheidt, and Michael Praetorius. The Consort Chorus collaborates with our friends, the Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, led by Michael Holmes, in a program offering a unique and festive exploration of a wide variety of seasonal music for choirs of voices and instruments.

Consort Chorus and Instrumentalists
Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble

We open the season with the first and most lavishly scored of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos. Complementing this instrumental tour-de-force is one of Bach’s most famous and beloved sacred cantatas, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 140. The second half opens with the majestic organ Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, followed by one of the most festive of all secular cantatas, BWV 207a, written for the name-day of the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, alto
Patrick Kilbride, tenor
Richard Giarusso, bass
Bradley Tatum, horn
Paul Hopkins, horn

One of the most ancient hymns of the church, the Magnificat or Canticle of Mary has captured the imagination of great composers since medieval times. In our final concert we present Bach’s festive setting of this text, composed during his first season in Leipzig, alongside three other superb settings by his contemporaries.

Robin Beckman, soprano
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, mezzo-soprano
Matthew Loyal Smith, tenor
Richard Giarusso, bass
Steven Combs, bass

Following last season’s performance of the first half of the Orgelbüchlein, we present the second half of this remarkable collection of chorale preludes performed by Dr. Lewis. Each prelude is preceded by Bach’s arrangement of the respective chorale sung by members of the Consort chorus, a unique opportunity to appreciate these miraculous musical miniatures.

J. Reilly Lewis, organ

Join the Consort Chorus for a dynamic program of choral and organ music, featuring the stupendous virtuosity of Todd Fickley on the world-renowned Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ at National Presbyterian Church.

Consort Chorus
Todd Fickley, organ

The season begins with a program devoted to J. S. Bach’s Latin church music, composed during his time in Leipzig. Featuring two of Bach’s “short masses” and two brief independent movements also designed to enhance the Lutheran Liturgy – sublime music by a man often referred to as the “Fifth Evangelist.”

Katelyn Aungst, soprano
Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, mezzo-soprano
Robert Petillo, tenor
Steven Combs, bass

Emily Noël, soprano
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Chris Dudley, countertenor
Matthew Loyal Smith, tenor
Steven Combs, bass
Richard Giarusso, bass

This year we return to a popular format featuring the exquisite voices of the Consort Chorus as well as the brilliant keyboard artistry of organist Todd Fickley.

Todd Fickley, organist

For the first time J. Reilly Lewis and the Washington Bach Consort Chorus present, in two annual cycles, all forty-five chorale preludes from the Little Organ Book (Das Orgelbüchlein), the first of three major organ collections Bach assembled over the course of his lifetime. This concert covers the Advent through Lent portion of the church year, with members of the Chorus singing the chorales on which the organ pieces were based.

Robert Beizer, concert underwriter

Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, mezzo-soprano
Robert Petillo, tenor
Steven Combs, baritone
Marlisa del Cid Woods, violin
Meg Owens, oboe
John Moran, cello
J. Reilly Lewis, harpsichord

Sherezade Panthaki, soprano
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, mezzo-soprano
Nicholas Fichter, tenor
Jon Bruno, bass

Emily Noel, soprano
Roger Isaacs, countertenor
Matthew Loyal Smith, tenor
Steven Combs, bass

Rufus Muller, tenor (Evangelist)
Richard Giarusso, bass (Christus)
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Barbara Hollinshead, mezzo-soprano
Robert Petillo, tenor
Steven Combs, baritone

Katelyn Aungst, soprano
Kate Vetter Cain, soprano
Yeonjung Ellie Kim, soprano
Rebecca Kellerman Petretta, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, mezzo-soprano
John Wiggins, tenor
Scott Auby, bass
Eric Sabatino, harp

Jennifer Lane, mezzo-soprano
Annie Loud, violin
Claire Jolivet, violin
Geoffrey Burgess, oboe
J. Reilly Lewis, organist

Elizabeth Futral, soprano
Jennifer Ellis Kampani, soprano
Robin Smith, soprano
Chris Dudley, countertenor
Jason Rylander, tenor
Mark Duer, baritone