Beginning May 3, the oldest US Festival dedicated to the music of J.S. Bach will take place, as it has 99 times since 1900, in the eastern Pennsylvania home town of the oldest American musical organization so dedicated, the Bach Choir of Bethlehem.
This 100th Festival will be anchored by performances of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion and Mass in B Minor. Other events will include an exhibition entitled “The Bach Choir of Bethlehem — A Visual History,” lectures by distinguished scholars, a music and dance collaboration by the Bach Festival Orchestra and the Taylor 2 Dance Company, a chamber music recital by the Baltimore Consort, a regulation Bach Cantata Service (in which Cantata 74 is performed in its original context, a church service), the world premiere of the film Mr. Bach Comes to Call (originally staged as a family concert/drama), and will finish up with a Bach Jazz Cabaret with Donal Fox on May 12.
