REVIEW: Bach Festival at @BaldwinWallace University

Bach

An intriguing combination of tradition (the annual Baldwin Wallace University Bach Festival itself) and innovation (new conductors, new programming) drew Bach aficionados and the just plain curious to this year’s annual campus festival. Sonic delights abounded.

The Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, this year’s featured big Bach work, represented tradition. Conducted by newly-appointed Festival Director, Dirk Garner, the traditional aspects lay more in the music and text than in the execution which was definitely not “churchy” with the vocalists’ stress on dramatic, theatrical aspects.

Most evident in the drama department? The Baldwin Wallace Festival Choir, made up of Baldwin Wallace students, added passion and dance moves as they took up the traditional voices of storytellers (think choruses in Greek dramas–all voices of the people–happy, sad, angry, guilty). Guest soloists Jessica Petrus (soprano), Eric Jurenas (countertenor), John Russell (tenor), Paul Max Tipton (bass-baritone) provided beautiful, clear interpretations. Even though Jurenas seemed appealingly at ease filling the role often given to mezzo sopranos, I missed the beauty possible in the “Christe eleison” duet between soprano and mezzo. There’s just something about the warmth generated between soprano and alto.

While at times the connection between the Baldwin Wallace Symphony Orchestra (prepared by new faculty member Octavio Mas-Arocas) and the chorus seemed soupy (that’s a technical term of course), the instrumental soloists combined beautifully with each other and  the vocal soloists, providing a high point (and a moment of rest) in the concert.

The weekend was packed with other events as well. Conductor Mas-Arocas ably conducted Friday night’s program featuring the Festival Orchestra. It began in the darkened auditorium with a beautiful presentation of contemporary composer Steven Stucky’s “Funeral Music for Queen Mary (after Purcell).” While the solemn funeral march played, the LottDance ensemble carried lights slowly up to the stage. One interesting (but less successful) combination later on the program was the mix of interpretive dance by the LottDance ensemble with Bach’s Cantata No. 170 (performed by the Festival Chamber Orchestra and Jurenas) that demanded such great powers of split attention that one had to choose which to focus upon. Too much at once; I don’t want to chose. Other highlights of works influenced by Bach included sprightly renditions of Tom Trapp’s witty “Headless Snowman” and an expansive and beautiful version of Respighi’s adaptation of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 525.

On Saturday afternoon organist Edoardo Bellotti played a selection of works, including the same Bach prelude and fugue (BWV 525) heard the previous evening. Listeners reported delight in this and Bellotti’s masterful improvisations to random suggestions offered at the conclusion of his program in the United Methodist Church of Berea.

Other events — talks about the brain and music, a discussion of controversial aspects of Bach’s works, a Sunday Bach service at the United Methodist Church — even a Bach Rennen 5K Run/Walk (gotta train for that!) — left musical hearts happy and exhausted. For the details (and announcement of next year’s April festival) go to the Bach Festival web page.

Next year’s Bach Festival (April 15-17, 2016) promises more mashups of old and new. It  features David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion as well as J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. And before that, the quirky Roomful of Teeth, an a cappella vocal group recently heard at the Cleveland Museum of Art, will appear as part of the now-extended Bach festivities at BW on April 2, 2016.

Review by Laura Kennelly

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2 Responses to “REVIEW: Bach Festival at @BaldwinWallace University”

  1. Roger Faulmann

    I am a graduate of Baldwin Wallace (class of 1960) I sang in the festival chorus. and received my degree in Music Education.
    I AM SO PROUD……….

  2. Roger Faulmann

    BME class of 1960
    Student of Cloyd Duff
    Very Proud

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