For 50 years, lovers of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach have had an annual opportunity to hear his compositions performed by superlative musicians and singers at the Evanston-based Bach Week Festival. That celebrated festival will occur April 26-May 5 for the last time.
“I have been the music director for 50 of the 51 seasons,” said Richard Webster. “For paid staff, we have one operations manager, me, and a bookkeeper. Everything else has relied all these years on volunteers who love the festival and love the music of Bach.”
Webster said that it became a consensus that it was time to end the festival. “We’ve had a really good half-century run,” he said.
Webster has planned a fantastic program for the group’s final season.
The celebrated Armenian American pianist Sergei Babayan opens the festival at 7:30 p.m. April 26 with the world premiere of a new recital program at Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston. It will consist of pieces from the late Classical and Romantic periods to the late 20th century, by composers from Armenia, Austria, France, Germany, Hungary, Russia, Spain, and the United States. Tickets are $35-$50 for adults; $25 seniors; $15 students.
That will be followed by Italian Delights, a candlelight concert of Italian Baroque arias performed by Dutch soprano Josefien Stoppelenburg and harpsichordist Stephen Alltop at 10 p.m. on April 26 in the lobby of Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston. Complementary Champagne and fine chocolates will be served. Tickets are $25.
This is the third year that the festival has expanded into Chicago’s Ravenswood area. They will present Music Among Friends, an early instrument performance at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 4550 N. Hermitage Ave. at 3 p.m. April 28 in Chicago. The concert is free.
“We are not an early instrument festival, we never have been,” Webster said. “We have opened the door to Jason Moy, one of the premier harpsichordists in town. He puts together a group of period instruments and singers to do this Ravenswood concert and we offer it for free.
“The ‘B Minor Mass’ is definitely the big highlight,” Webster said of the concluding program at 4 p.m. May 5 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Ave., Evanston. The piece is considered a crowning achievement of Western music.
Webster will conduct the North Park University Chamber Singers and the Bach Week Festival Orchestra and Chorus. Tickets are $35-$50; $25 seniors; $15 students.
The festival was started in 1974 by Karel Paukert, then associate professor of organ and church music at Northwestern University and organist and choirmaster at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. He called Bach “the giant of giants.”
Paukert was music director the first year, then turned the music director role over to his student Webster because he planned to move to Cleveland. Not only didn’t Paukert think the festival would last 50 years, he jokingly said, “I didn’t think I’d be here 50 years.”
Oboist Judith Kulb has been performing with the Bach Week Festival since 1977. In addition, she helps plan the programming with Webster and contracts the winds, brass, and timpani musicians. A third musician, violist Melissa Kirk, contracts the strings players.
“It’s a beautiful little festival,” Kulb said. “We work hard on making our unique group of musicians and their talents and gifts shine.”
Kulb said that she will miss the festival, which she called “a lovely harbinger of spring. But everything to a season.”
“I’m a little bit sad that we’re closing down,” Webster said. “But I’m mostly delighted and deeply satisfied that we have been able to do this for 50 years.”
Webster added that he considers Bach “the greatest composer of all time. The music he has created is transcendent.”
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Bach Week Festival
When: April 26-May 5
Where: Nichols Concert Hall, 1490 Chicago Ave., Evanston; All Saints’ Episcopal Church, 4550 N. Hermitage Ave., Chicago; and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, 939 Hinman Ave., Evanston
Tickets: $15-$50
Information: 847-269-9050; bachweek.org
