There's some overlap with WKCR's annual Bach marathon.
www.wkcr.org
Bach: The Gift that Keeps on Giving
WKCR-FM 89.9 PRESENTS BACHFEST 2005
12/22/05, 9:30 AM – 1/1/06, 2:00 AM
Few composers seem fresh and interesting after a day’s listening, let alone a week’s. Every holiday season for over 25 years, WKCR has devoted seven to ten days to one of those few: Johann Sebastian Bach. “BachFest,” our round-the-clock Bach celebration, has become one of New York’s most popular classical music events – the New York Press even deemed it “Best Musical Thing about Christmas” in 2002.
When WKCR’s classical music directors sat down to plan this year’s BachFest, they wanted to bring out an aspect of Bach that still fascinates performers and listeners alike. From the tiny keyboard miniatures to the mighty passions, every Bach composition serves as a window into a vast and varied creative process, the product of one man’s ever-changing mind. This year’s festival introduces a new format that explores how this creative process developed over nearly forty years: a chronology of one- to three-day segments, each exploring a different period in Bach’s life. The festival begins with Bach in his pre-Weimar period, an eager young man experimenting with cantatas and keyboard works. The following day, listeners can hear him in his 20s and 30s, settled as court organist and concert master at Weimar. After following Bach from Weimar to Cöthen and then to Leipzig, the festival concludes with Bach in his Late Leipzig period, an aging man who struggled to hold a quill as he scribbled out the Goldberg Variations and Art of Fugue.
Throughout this new format, WKCR will still include segments familiar from years past: cantata request hours, a Glenn Gould festival-within-a-festival, and a “Jazz Meets Bach” segment hosted by resident jazz expert Phil Schaap. We plan to feature interviews with pianist Angela Hewitt, musicologist Joel Lester, organist Joan Lippincott and others. And, as always, WKCR’s announcers will provide in-depth commentary on Bach’s life and music. It is our great pleasure to present BachFest 2005 to greater New York and beyond
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