Local music impresario C. Scott Hagler knows how to craft a festival for the whole family. He will open the 15th annual Bach Festival at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church at 2 p.m. Sunday in the first of two recitals that afternoon. The next is at 4 p.m. Music teachers from the Four Corners have selected students to perform for area Bach fans.
All week long, Hagler and company will celebrate the 337th birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach. The actual birthdate is a bit fluid. No one knows exactly when Bach was born. Two possibilities have persisted: Old Style dating lists Bach’s birth as March 21, 1685. New Style dating shifts the date forward to March 31.
After the Sunday double bill, the popular and affectionately nicknamed Bach’s Lunch program follows. The 30-minute noontime recitals are designed as mini-concerts after which audience members are invited to stay and have lunch in the Parish Hall. The luncheon menu varies each day, catered by the inventive chef, Cheryl Birchard. Recital tickets are $10. Lunch-and-concert tickets are $15. It’s very much a community affair with open seating, delicious food and a chance to catch up with friends.
If you go
WHAT: 15th Annual Durango Bach Festival, featuring musicians from the Four Corners.
WHEN: Sunday through March 19.
WHERE: St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 910 East Third Ave.
TICKETS: Sunday Student Recitals: $5. Noon Bach’s Lunch: $10 or $15 concert and lunch; evening concerts $20 adults, $5 students/children. Festival Pass: $100. Available online at www.durangobachfestival.com or at the door.
MORE INFORMATION: Visit www.durangobachfestival.com, email Scott@3rdAveArts.org or call 903-7427.
Bach Lunch Artistic Directors Kathryn Shaffer (flute) and Kristen Chen (piano) have introduced a few new elements for 2022.
“We decided to highlight two outstanding seniors to join the professionals,” Shaffer said. “Casey Reed, violin, and Elizabeth Chen, cello, have grown up in the Durango music scene and have performed in the Bach student recitals every year.”
In addition, piano-accordionist Ken Beegles will play two works at noon March 18, Shaffer said.
“I think the audience will enjoy the unique presentation,” she said.
Here’s another way to look at the program: expect to hear Bach by organ and/or harpsichord (Hagler, Lisa Campi Walters, Beegles, Mika Inouye and Linda Mack Berven); Bach by flute (Shaffer, Rochelle Mann and Diann Cates); Bach by cello (Sandy Kiefer, Sheri McMurtrey, Hans Freuden, Kristine Natseway, Katherine Jetter and Elizabeth Chen); Bach by violin and viola (Reed, Joseph Pope, Rebecca Benally and Kristen Chen); and finally, Bach by voice (Gemma Kavanaugh, Fred Graham and Drea Pressley).
The evening concerts take place at 7 Wednesday and Saturday. Mid-week highlights harpsichordist Marilyn Garst playing Bach’s “Toccata” in C minor followed by “Eight Little Preludes and Fugues” performed by organist Hagler. To complete the evening, Hagler will play the “Pastorale” in F major.
March 19’s Festival Finale highlights Bach’s choral music with the Durango Chamber Singers, conducted by Elizabeth Crawford, and the Bach Festival Ensemble. “Cantata BWV169,” whose title translates as “God alone should possess my heart,” will open the program. Mezzo-soprano Nan Wagner will be the soloist, and it will be a grand moment to welcome her back to Durango after a several-year hiatus in Oregon. Hagler will provide a change of pace by playing the well-known and well-loved “Toccata and Fugue in D minor,” and to conclude the program, the Singers and Ensemble will perform Bach’s motet: “Jesu Meine Freude (Jesus My Joy).”
After 15 years of successful festivals with a pause for the pandemic, our local celebration of the great Baroque master by our own musicians continues.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
