Don’t say Bach is back...because he never left. J. S. Bach’s gigantic musical legacy strides onward 275 years after he died. Simply put, he did it all: music for voice, chorus, keyboard, orchestra, chamber groups, organ—over 1,100 known works. Now they are all being performed in a decade-long project in Worcester, MA. CONCORA, Connecticut’s oldest professional choir, is a partner in that monumental venture, under its artistic director Dr. Chris Shepard. Here in West Hartford, CONCORA will present three J. S. Bach cantatas on October 22. In advance of this concert, Chris Shepard’s talk on Bach, the cornerstone of Western music, will clue you in on sly mathematical puzzles and messages he often snuck into his pieces. You’ll want to take note.
Chris Shepard, conductor and graduate of the Hartt School, launched THE COMPLETE BACH in May 2024, the first project to present live performances of all of Bach’s works. This monumental undertaking was inspired by BACH2010 (2005-2013), in which his Sydneian Bach Choir and Orchestra performed all of Bach’s choral cantatas in Sydney, Australia. Chris is music director of CONCORA (CT’s oldest professional choir), The Worcester Chorus, and Con Brio Choral Society. He has led two longstanding annual Handel Messiah traditions: Worcester Chorus’s annual performance at Mechanics Hall; and from 2015 to 2023 he conducted annual performances at Carnegie Hall by the Masterwork Chorus. He holds degrees from the Hartt School, the Yale School of Music, and the University of Sydney, where his PhD thesis on the performance history of the B Minor Mass received the American Choral Director Association’s 2012 Julius Herford Prize for outstanding dissertation.
Monday, Sept. 28 | 2 p.m.–3:30 p.m. | McLean (off-campus, Simsbury) | $20
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