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THE BACH CHOIR OF BETHLEHEM ANNOUNCES 2019-20 SEASON
A bond with the past…a beacon toward the future
The Bach Choir of Bethlehem has announced its 2019-20 Concert Season – when it will highlight the impact music has in our lives, in both the past and as a guide toward the future. Just as “poetry enshrines truth!” through the economy and power of its words, this season evokes a similar thought: “music enshrines memory!” Artistic Director and Conductor Greg Funfgeld comments: “Whatever your musical moment – whether that’s a lullaby, college anthem, film soundtrack, a dearly loved hymn - music and memories live on in our minds long after many other things have been forgotten.”
Music has a way of guiding us as well. As it has for more than a century, J.S. Bach’s music remains the core of The Choir’s performances and our season. Bach and his music influenced countless musicians, and continues to do so even today. Because of this, his music leads us in many directions, and this season’s repertoire presents music from baroque masters to significant 20th century composers, including Benjamin Britten and John Tavener. Distinguished soloists this year include Eliot Fisk, guitar, Dashon Burton, bass baritone, and Danny Taylor, who will present his ensemble Theatre of Early Music performing at our Gala concert and fundraiser in October. The year will conclude with the Choir’s appearance at the Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany in June, 2020. The Bach Choir, Bach Festival Orchestra, and distinguished soloists will once again be under the direction of Greg Funfgeld. Founded in 1898, the Bach Choir celebrates its 122nd season this year, and presents more than 40 concerts and educational programs for an audience of more than 22,000 who attend from across the country and around the world.
Artistic Director and Conductor Funfgeld, who has announced his retirement to come in June, 2021, begins his 37th season with the Choir this year. His commitment to the community has been and continues to be significant, as he envisions and implements the Choir’s ever-expanding role in education and community engagement. This season, Conductor Funfgeld and the Choir features a concert at Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound, joined by a diverse group of choirs from the community. In June, 2020, he will lead The Choir on its first European tour in more than ten years, starting with the invitation to perform at the internationally renowned Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem is one of only four choirs from the United States, and one of eighteen from around the world, invited to give featured Bach Cantata concerts as part of the “We Are Family” theme. In addition to Bachfest, The Choir has concerts scheduled in Herrnhut and Dresden in Germany, with an additional concert in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
Bel Canto Youth Chorus
Founded by director Joy Hirokawa in 1993, Bel Canto Youth Chorus celebrates its 26th anniversary this season. Comprised of auditioned treble singers from five counties in Pennsylvania, our Youth Chorus performs a diversified choral repertoire. Both The Bach Choir and Bel Canto foster a lifelong passion for the choral art in a community of inclusion and musical excellence.
Under the direction of Greg Funfgeld, there will be many opportunities for mutual support of educational expansion for both choirs, and for joint programming. In the 2019-20 season, Bel Canto will participate in Touchstone Theatre’s A Joyful Noise Concert in October and in The Bach Choir’s Family Concert, Noah’s Flood, February 29 and March 1, 2020.
Most recently, Bel Canto performed at the International Children’s Choir Festival in the United Kingdom. Their tour included performances at Coventry Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral, with Festival conductors Henry Leck and David Flood.
The coming season will again include Choral Village summer camp (Summer, 2020), designed for middle school students and a three-day Choral Workshop for music teachers in partnership with Lehigh Valley middle schools, led by a Dr. Jason Vodicka, Westminster Choir College and Joy Hirokawa.
Our 122nd Season includes:
Bach at Noon: The season begins on September 10, 2019 with the first of ten Bach at Noon concerts – seven at Central Moravian Church, Bethlehem and three at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Allentown. This gift to the community, initiated in 2005, now attracts more than 8,000 people a year to the free concerts of choral and instrumental works by Bach and other composers introduced by Greg Funfgeld with an informal and enlightening talk. In February 2020, we will present our 105th Bach at Noon in Bethlehem and in June, 2020 we will celebrate our 15th performance in Allentown.
A Joyful Noise – Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound
October 6, 2019 at 4 pm – Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University
The Bach Choir and Bel Canto Youth Chorus are joined by a diverse group of community choirs for a spectacular arts event: Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound! Joining us are Shiloh Baptist Choir, Nazareth High School Chorale, and the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts. The Choir performs Stephen Paulus’ A Dream of Time (commissioned and performed for Greg Funfgeld’s 25th anniversary in 2009.) Ysaӱe Barnwell (formerly of Sweet Honey in the Rock) leads the audience in a community sing, and Greg Funfgeld conducts the massed choirs in Paul Halley’s Freedom Trilogy as a festive finale.
Gala Concert – Theatre of Early Music presents: Coronation of King George II
October 26, 2019 at 3pm – St. John’s Lutheran Church, Allentown
This sweeping orchestral and choral pageant makes its American debut at the Gala, and takes us to the English Court, and the coronation of King George II. The performance features the music of Handel, Purcell, and Palestrina, and offers an enthralling and uplifting experience, as the new monarch is crowned. Artistic director and countertenor Daniel Taylor is a frequent and warmly regarded Bach Choir soloist and in creating the coronation, Taylor and his musicians deliver orchestral and choral pageantry that includes Renaissance to Baroque to present-day compositions. The ensemble will also include members of The Bach Choir.
““Moving through the attentive audience to join the Theatre of Early Music’s refreshingly uninhibited players on stage, chorus and orchestra assembled for the great, swelling coronation anthem, The King Shall Rejoice, Taylor leading with great charisma and exuberance.” ~ Ian Ritchie, Opera Going Toronto
Bel Canto Winter Concert
Saturday, December 7 2019 at 2pm
Location to be announced
Christmas Concerts –Bach and Handel: Magnificat and Messiah, Part 1
December 7, 2018 at 8pm First Presbyterian Church, Allentown
December 8, 2018 at 4pm First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
This year’s Christmas concerts celebrate the joyful anticipation of the season with glorious pieces from Bach and Handel. In conductor Funfgeld’s hands, these evocative works will be interpreted with passion, joy and unparalleled musical excellence. Note that this is the first time in the 120+ year history of the Choir that we will perform the Messiah in its entirety! (Part Two will be performed at our Spring Concert in March.)
J.S. Bach:
Magnificat - First heard in Leipzig in 1723, Bach sets Mary’s radical, rhapsodic song of praise with an extraordinary sense of text painting. From the ecstatic joy of an overflowing first movement, the Magnificat is Bach at his most theatrical, which makes it an excellent partner to Handel’s masterpiece.
George Frideric Handel:
Messiah, Part One: Handel’s years of experience writing for the theatre are manifest in his most famous work, also a masterpiece of text painting. Part One celebrates biblical prophecies of Christ, including texts from Isaiah that mirror the rhapsody of Mary’s Magnificat. It also includes some of Messiah’s most rousing and challenging choruses, all of which will be given the Bach Choir’s consummate treatment.
Soloists:
Agnes Zsigovics, soprano
Daniel Taylor, counter-tenor
Isaiah Bell, tenor
David Newman, bass-baritone
Family Concert – Noah’s Flood (Noyes Fludde)
February 29 and March 1, 2020 at 3 pm –Packer Memorial Church, Lehigh University
Benjamin Britten combines a child's curiosity and whimsy with great emotional power in this evocative one-act church opera. The audience will join for the first hymn, which includes a thundering depiction of the biblical storm. A large battery of percussion contrasts with delicate trilling recorders, and in one evocative scene, a raven is given the voice of a cello, and the dove a fluttering recorder. There are roles for children's chorus, as the animals on the ark, and vocal soloists. Britten was hugely influenced by Bach, and many of Bach's most oft-used compositional practices were updated by Britten in his choral works. The Bach Choir and The Bach Festival Orchestra welcome The Bel Canto Youth Chorus, Pennsylvania Youth Theater, and members of the Lehigh University Philharmonic Orchestra to share this performance.
Spring Concert – Bach and Handel: Easter Oratorio and Messiah, Part 2
March 29, 2020 at 4pm
First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
Bach's Easter Oratorio, with its sinfonias and rousing choruses, beautiful recitatives, and powerful arias, and will make an excellent match with Part II of Handel’s Messiah. This performance offers us the opportunity to hear works by the two arguably most important composers (and contemporaries) of the Baroque approaching the same narrative with their singular skills.
While the Easter Oratorio begins on Easter morning, Messiah Part Two also delves into the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and reign in glory, beginning with the haunting chorus, "Behold the Lamb of God," and ending with the famous "Hallelujah Chorus."
Soloists:
Ellen McAteer, soprano
Daniel Taylor, counter-tenor
Benjamin Butterfield, tenor
Daniel Lichti, bass-baritone
Bel Canto Spring Concert
May 2, 2020 at 2pm
Location to be announced
The 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival—May 8-9 and 15, 16, 17, 2020
“…one acquires a unique understanding of Bach’s incomparably varied and complex Mass in B Minor, the center piece of each festival from repeatedly hearing an outstanding live performance of the work, intentionally consistent from year to year.” — New York Arts, 2019
The 113th Bach Festival will once again welcome a community from near and far who share their love of choral music, baroque composers and the exquisite genius of J.S. Bach. This season, we’ll preview our Leipzig Bachfest concert at our Bach at 8 performance; we’ll welcome back guitarist Eliot Fisk as our Artist-in-Residence, performing Concerto in E Major for Guitar and Orchestra by Luigi Boccherini at the Ifor Jones Chamber Music Concert, showcase young musicians and their compositions in The Bach Chaconne Project and once again co-host the Young American Singers Competition with the American Bach Society. And as always, we offer our festival centerpiece: Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
About The Bach Choir of Bethlehem
“Their choral sonority is so rich you can feel it in your bones.” –Wall Street Journal, May 2015
A glorious friendship between a great composer and the orchestra, conductor and choir at the heart of an extraordinary town.” – The Whole Note, Toronto, June 2015
“The Bach Choir must surely be one of the most extraordinary musical institutions in the world.”
New York Arts, 2016
The oldest American Bach Choir, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem gave the first complete American performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in 1900 and Christmas Oratorio in 1901. Since its founding in 1898, the now-famous Choir attracts thousands of visitors from across the United States and beyond to the annual Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania.
Since 1983, under Greg Funfgeld’s direction, the 85 dedicated volunteer singers of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, performing with the Bach Festival Orchestra and distinguished soloists, have received international acclaim. Programming has expanded to 32 concerts and educational programs per year for an audience of more than 22,000. Venues have included the Herkulessaal at Munich’s Royal Residence and the Thomaskirche, Bach’s church in Leipzig, as part of the 1995 Germany tour; The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall as part of The Choir’s Centennial Celebration in 1998–2000; the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of an eight-concert tour of the United Kingdom in 2003; and Severance Hall, Cleveland for the 75th anniversary of the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival in 2007.
In September 2011, The Bach Choir represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a 10th anniversary musical observance of 9/11 in New York City, giving concerts in Saint Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church, Wall Street. In 2013, The Choir performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Strathmore in the Washington D.C. area, and in 2014, the new opera Young Meister Bach for the 250th anniversary of the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The Choir has released nine recordings on the Dorian and Analekta labels including most recently A Child’s Christmas in Bethlehem (2013) and Bach and Handel (2018). The choir has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and A Prairie Home Companion, Deutsche Radio, the BBC World Service, CBS Sunday Morning, and the Emmy award-winning PBS documentary on The Choir, Make a Joyful Noise.
The Choir has been recognized for its outstanding education outreach programs (Bach at Noon, Bach to School, and interdisciplinary Family Concert) by annual awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (2011-2019). The J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland named The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as the first American recipient of its annual award to a single Bach organization, recognizing The Bach Choir’s outstanding work in a Bach performance and education for young people (2012.) Mr. Bach Comes to Call, a film based on the acclaimed Classical Kids CD, was co-produced by The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and is distributed internationally by The Children’s Group. In July 2018, our affiliated Bel Canto Youth Chorus, celebrated its 25th year under the direction of founder Joy Hirokawa and officially merged with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Both organizations are looking to increase their impact in training the next generation of choral singers and cultivating a life-long passion for the choral arts.
THE BEL CANTO YOUTH CHORUS: Founded in 1993 and comprised of auditioned treble singers from five counties in southeastern Pennsylvania, The Bel Canto Youth Chorus has developed an international reputation for performing diversified choral repertoire at the highest standard of musical excellence and style. In July, 2018, Bel Canto Youth Chorus officially merged with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as its affiliated youth chorus. Noted for the innovative, artistic programs they present, the choir has been invited to perform for numerous music conferences, including the Eastern Division ACDA (2010 and 2006), Eastern Division MENC, PMEA, AGO and Pennsylvania ACDA conferences. In 2013, the choir completed a recording with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for a Christmas CD that was released on the Analekta label. The choir was honored in July 2011 to be recognized as the winner of The American Prize in the Children’s Chorus category. The choir frequently collaborates with other artists, such as the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, the Allentown Symphony, the Bucks County Choral Society, and the Lehigh University Choral Union. They performed a Concert for Peace with Philadelphia based Atzilut in March 2009. In 2007, the choir was honored to be part of the Philadelphia premiere performance of John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, presented by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia (Alan Harler, director). Tours have taken the choir to Central Europe, Italy, Ireland, Canada, England, Oregon, Brooklyn, Disneyworld, Ohio, and twice to Hawaii for the Pacific Rim Children’s Choral Festival under the direction of Henry Leck. In July, 2019, the group traveled to the U.K. to be part of the International Children’s Choir Festival, and performed at Canterbury Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral and Southwerk Cathedral in London. The choir has been under the direction of Dr. Joy Hirokawa since its founding in 1993. For more information: https://bach.org/belcanto/
For tickets and further information: BACH.org, 610-866-4382
Music has a way of guiding us as well. As it has for more than a century, J.S. Bach’s music remains the core of The Choir’s performances and our season. Bach and his music influenced countless musicians, and continues to do so even today. Because of this, his music leads us in many directions, and this season’s repertoire presents music from baroque masters to significant 20th century composers, including Benjamin Britten and John Tavener. Distinguished soloists this year include Eliot Fisk, guitar, Dashon Burton, bass baritone, and Danny Taylor, who will present his ensemble Theatre of Early Music performing at our Gala concert and fundraiser in October. The year will conclude with the Choir’s appearance at the Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany in June, 2020. The Bach Choir, Bach Festival Orchestra, and distinguished soloists will once again be under the direction of Greg Funfgeld. Founded in 1898, the Bach Choir celebrates its 122nd season this year, and presents more than 40 concerts and educational programs for an audience of more than 22,000 who attend from across the country and around the world.
Artistic Director and Conductor Funfgeld, who has announced his retirement to come in June, 2021, begins his 37th season with the Choir this year. His commitment to the community has been and continues to be significant, as he envisions and implements the Choir’s ever-expanding role in education and community engagement. This season, Conductor Funfgeld and the Choir features a concert at Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound, joined by a diverse group of choirs from the community. In June, 2020, he will lead The Choir on its first European tour in more than ten years, starting with the invitation to perform at the internationally renowned Bachfest in Leipzig, Germany. The Bach Choir of Bethlehem is one of only four choirs from the United States, and one of eighteen from around the world, invited to give featured Bach Cantata concerts as part of the “We Are Family” theme. In addition to Bachfest, The Choir has concerts scheduled in Herrnhut and Dresden in Germany, with an additional concert in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
Bel Canto Youth Chorus
Founded by director Joy Hirokawa in 1993, Bel Canto Youth Chorus celebrates its 26th anniversary this season. Comprised of auditioned treble singers from five counties in Pennsylvania, our Youth Chorus performs a diversified choral repertoire. Both The Bach Choir and Bel Canto foster a lifelong passion for the choral art in a community of inclusion and musical excellence.
Under the direction of Greg Funfgeld, there will be many opportunities for mutual support of educational expansion for both choirs, and for joint programming. In the 2019-20 season, Bel Canto will participate in Touchstone Theatre’s A Joyful Noise Concert in October and in The Bach Choir’s Family Concert, Noah’s Flood, February 29 and March 1, 2020.
Most recently, Bel Canto performed at the International Children’s Choir Festival in the United Kingdom. Their tour included performances at Coventry Cathedral, Canterbury Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral, with Festival conductors Henry Leck and David Flood.
The coming season will again include Choral Village summer camp (Summer, 2020), designed for middle school students and a three-day Choral Workshop for music teachers in partnership with Lehigh Valley middle schools, led by a Dr. Jason Vodicka, Westminster Choir College and Joy Hirokawa.
Our 122nd Season includes:
Bach at Noon: The season begins on September 10, 2019 with the first of ten Bach at Noon concerts – seven at Central Moravian Church, Bethlehem and three at Saint John’s Lutheran Church in Allentown. This gift to the community, initiated in 2005, now attracts more than 8,000 people a year to the free concerts of choral and instrumental works by Bach and other composers introduced by Greg Funfgeld with an informal and enlightening talk. In February 2020, we will present our 105th Bach at Noon in Bethlehem and in June, 2020 we will celebrate our 15th performance in Allentown.
A Joyful Noise – Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound
October 6, 2019 at 4 pm – Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University
The Bach Choir and Bel Canto Youth Chorus are joined by a diverse group of community choirs for a spectacular arts event: Touchstone Theatre’s Festival Unbound! Joining us are Shiloh Baptist Choir, Nazareth High School Chorale, and the Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Arts. The Choir performs Stephen Paulus’ A Dream of Time (commissioned and performed for Greg Funfgeld’s 25th anniversary in 2009.) Ysaӱe Barnwell (formerly of Sweet Honey in the Rock) leads the audience in a community sing, and Greg Funfgeld conducts the massed choirs in Paul Halley’s Freedom Trilogy as a festive finale.
Gala Concert – Theatre of Early Music presents: Coronation of King George II
October 26, 2019 at 3pm – St. John’s Lutheran Church, Allentown
This sweeping orchestral and choral pageant makes its American debut at the Gala, and takes us to the English Court, and the coronation of King George II. The performance features the music of Handel, Purcell, and Palestrina, and offers an enthralling and uplifting experience, as the new monarch is crowned. Artistic director and countertenor Daniel Taylor is a frequent and warmly regarded Bach Choir soloist and in creating the coronation, Taylor and his musicians deliver orchestral and choral pageantry that includes Renaissance to Baroque to present-day compositions. The ensemble will also include members of The Bach Choir.
““Moving through the attentive audience to join the Theatre of Early Music’s refreshingly uninhibited players on stage, chorus and orchestra assembled for the great, swelling coronation anthem, The King Shall Rejoice, Taylor leading with great charisma and exuberance.” ~ Ian Ritchie, Opera Going Toronto
Bel Canto Winter Concert
Saturday, December 7 2019 at 2pm
Location to be announced
Christmas Concerts –Bach and Handel: Magnificat and Messiah, Part 1
December 7, 2018 at 8pm First Presbyterian Church, Allentown
December 8, 2018 at 4pm First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
This year’s Christmas concerts celebrate the joyful anticipation of the season with glorious pieces from Bach and Handel. In conductor Funfgeld’s hands, these evocative works will be interpreted with passion, joy and unparalleled musical excellence. Note that this is the first time in the 120+ year history of the Choir that we will perform the Messiah in its entirety! (Part Two will be performed at our Spring Concert in March.)
J.S. Bach:
Magnificat - First heard in Leipzig in 1723, Bach sets Mary’s radical, rhapsodic song of praise with an extraordinary sense of text painting. From the ecstatic joy of an overflowing first movement, the Magnificat is Bach at his most theatrical, which makes it an excellent partner to Handel’s masterpiece.
George Frideric Handel:
Messiah, Part One: Handel’s years of experience writing for the theatre are manifest in his most famous work, also a masterpiece of text painting. Part One celebrates biblical prophecies of Christ, including texts from Isaiah that mirror the rhapsody of Mary’s Magnificat. It also includes some of Messiah’s most rousing and challenging choruses, all of which will be given the Bach Choir’s consummate treatment.
Soloists:
Agnes Zsigovics, soprano
Daniel Taylor, counter-tenor
Isaiah Bell, tenor
David Newman, bass-baritone
Family Concert – Noah’s Flood (Noyes Fludde)
February 29 and March 1, 2020 at 3 pm –Packer Memorial Church, Lehigh University
Benjamin Britten combines a child's curiosity and whimsy with great emotional power in this evocative one-act church opera. The audience will join for the first hymn, which includes a thundering depiction of the biblical storm. A large battery of percussion contrasts with delicate trilling recorders, and in one evocative scene, a raven is given the voice of a cello, and the dove a fluttering recorder. There are roles for children's chorus, as the animals on the ark, and vocal soloists. Britten was hugely influenced by Bach, and many of Bach's most oft-used compositional practices were updated by Britten in his choral works. The Bach Choir and The Bach Festival Orchestra welcome The Bel Canto Youth Chorus, Pennsylvania Youth Theater, and members of the Lehigh University Philharmonic Orchestra to share this performance.
Spring Concert – Bach and Handel: Easter Oratorio and Messiah, Part 2
March 29, 2020 at 4pm
First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
Bach's Easter Oratorio, with its sinfonias and rousing choruses, beautiful recitatives, and powerful arias, and will make an excellent match with Part II of Handel’s Messiah. This performance offers us the opportunity to hear works by the two arguably most important composers (and contemporaries) of the Baroque approaching the same narrative with their singular skills.
While the Easter Oratorio begins on Easter morning, Messiah Part Two also delves into the Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and reign in glory, beginning with the haunting chorus, "Behold the Lamb of God," and ending with the famous "Hallelujah Chorus."
Soloists:
Ellen McAteer, soprano
Daniel Taylor, counter-tenor
Benjamin Butterfield, tenor
Daniel Lichti, bass-baritone
Bel Canto Spring Concert
May 2, 2020 at 2pm
Location to be announced
The 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival—May 8-9 and 15, 16, 17, 2020
“…one acquires a unique understanding of Bach’s incomparably varied and complex Mass in B Minor, the center piece of each festival from repeatedly hearing an outstanding live performance of the work, intentionally consistent from year to year.” — New York Arts, 2019
The 113th Bach Festival will once again welcome a community from near and far who share their love of choral music, baroque composers and the exquisite genius of J.S. Bach. This season, we’ll preview our Leipzig Bachfest concert at our Bach at 8 performance; we’ll welcome back guitarist Eliot Fisk as our Artist-in-Residence, performing Concerto in E Major for Guitar and Orchestra by Luigi Boccherini at the Ifor Jones Chamber Music Concert, showcase young musicians and their compositions in The Bach Chaconne Project and once again co-host the Young American Singers Competition with the American Bach Society. And as always, we offer our festival centerpiece: Bach’s Mass in B Minor.
About The Bach Choir of Bethlehem
“Their choral sonority is so rich you can feel it in your bones.” –Wall Street Journal, May 2015
A glorious friendship between a great composer and the orchestra, conductor and choir at the heart of an extraordinary town.” – The Whole Note, Toronto, June 2015
“The Bach Choir must surely be one of the most extraordinary musical institutions in the world.”
New York Arts, 2016
The oldest American Bach Choir, The Bach Choir of Bethlehem gave the first complete American performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor in 1900 and Christmas Oratorio in 1901. Since its founding in 1898, the now-famous Choir attracts thousands of visitors from across the United States and beyond to the annual Bethlehem Bach Festival in Pennsylvania.
Since 1983, under Greg Funfgeld’s direction, the 85 dedicated volunteer singers of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, performing with the Bach Festival Orchestra and distinguished soloists, have received international acclaim. Programming has expanded to 32 concerts and educational programs per year for an audience of more than 22,000. Venues have included the Herkulessaal at Munich’s Royal Residence and the Thomaskirche, Bach’s church in Leipzig, as part of the 1995 Germany tour; The Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall as part of The Choir’s Centennial Celebration in 1998–2000; the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall as part of an eight-concert tour of the United Kingdom in 2003; and Severance Hall, Cleveland for the 75th anniversary of the Baldwin-Wallace Bach Festival in 2007.
In September 2011, The Bach Choir represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in a 10th anniversary musical observance of 9/11 in New York City, giving concerts in Saint Paul’s Chapel and Trinity Church, Wall Street. In 2013, The Choir performed Mendelssohn’s Elijah at Strathmore in the Washington D.C. area, and in 2014, the new opera Young Meister Bach for the 250th anniversary of the German Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The Choir has released nine recordings on the Dorian and Analekta labels including most recently A Child’s Christmas in Bethlehem (2013) and Bach and Handel (2018). The choir has been featured on National Public Radio’s Performance Today and A Prairie Home Companion, Deutsche Radio, the BBC World Service, CBS Sunday Morning, and the Emmy award-winning PBS documentary on The Choir, Make a Joyful Noise.
The Choir has been recognized for its outstanding education outreach programs (Bach at Noon, Bach to School, and interdisciplinary Family Concert) by annual awards from the National Endowment for the Arts (2011-2019). The J.S. Bach Foundation in Switzerland named The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as the first American recipient of its annual award to a single Bach organization, recognizing The Bach Choir’s outstanding work in a Bach performance and education for young people (2012.) Mr. Bach Comes to Call, a film based on the acclaimed Classical Kids CD, was co-produced by The Bach Choir of Bethlehem and is distributed internationally by The Children’s Group. In July 2018, our affiliated Bel Canto Youth Chorus, celebrated its 25th year under the direction of founder Joy Hirokawa and officially merged with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Both organizations are looking to increase their impact in training the next generation of choral singers and cultivating a life-long passion for the choral arts.
THE BEL CANTO YOUTH CHORUS: Founded in 1993 and comprised of auditioned treble singers from five counties in southeastern Pennsylvania, The Bel Canto Youth Chorus has developed an international reputation for performing diversified choral repertoire at the highest standard of musical excellence and style. In July, 2018, Bel Canto Youth Chorus officially merged with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem as its affiliated youth chorus. Noted for the innovative, artistic programs they present, the choir has been invited to perform for numerous music conferences, including the Eastern Division ACDA (2010 and 2006), Eastern Division MENC, PMEA, AGO and Pennsylvania ACDA conferences. In 2013, the choir completed a recording with the Bach Choir of Bethlehem for a Christmas CD that was released on the Analekta label. The choir was honored in July 2011 to be recognized as the winner of The American Prize in the Children’s Chorus category. The choir frequently collaborates with other artists, such as the Bach Choir of Bethlehem, the Allentown Symphony, the Bucks County Choral Society, and the Lehigh University Choral Union. They performed a Concert for Peace with Philadelphia based Atzilut in March 2009. In 2007, the choir was honored to be part of the Philadelphia premiere performance of John Adams’ On the Transmigration of Souls, presented by the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia (Alan Harler, director). Tours have taken the choir to Central Europe, Italy, Ireland, Canada, England, Oregon, Brooklyn, Disneyworld, Ohio, and twice to Hawaii for the Pacific Rim Children’s Choral Festival under the direction of Henry Leck. In July, 2019, the group traveled to the U.K. to be part of the International Children’s Choir Festival, and performed at Canterbury Cathedral, Coventry Cathedral and Southwerk Cathedral in London. The choir has been under the direction of Dr. Joy Hirokawa since its founding in 1993. For more information: https://bach.org/belcanto/
For tickets and further information: BACH.org, 610-866-4382
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