Music Worcester announces 166th season — 21 concerts including start of The Complete Bach
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Music Worcester's 166th season will feature 21 concerts including performances by the avant-garde Philip Glass Ensemble, the world-renowned Academy of St. Martin in the Field orchestra with award-winning pianist Bruce Liu, acclaimed violinist Maxim Vengerov, and the genre-bending Time for Three.
There will also be plenty of time for Bach. The 2024-25 season will be the first for Music Worcester's previously announced The Complete Bach project, during which all of 18th century German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach's known compositions will be performed during the course of 132 concerts over the next 11 years, culminating on March 21, 2035, the 350th anniversary of his birth.
"The 2024-2025 Season explores the incredible range of classical music and features artists bringing together multiple genres in their practice as performers,” said Adrien C. Finlay, executive director of Music Worcester. “We are especially excited to host these artists operating across multiple disciplines as a complement to the launch of our 11-year Bach project.”
The current season concludes May 18 with violinist Tessa Lark and Jazz guitarist Frank Vignola at Tuckerman Hall. Meanwhile, the fourth Summer@MW series will feature broad-ranging artists including The String Queens, presented in collaboration with The Village Worcester on July 26 at the BrickBox Theatre at the Jean McDonough Arts Center; The DePue Brothers Band, July 28 at the BrickBox Theater; and Take3, Aug.2 at Washburn Hall at Mechanics Hall.
Renowned artists across many genres
The 2024-25 season will get underway Oct. 18 in Mechanics Hall with The Philip Glass Ensemble. The ensemble was formed by Glass in 1968 as a laboratory for his music. The composer and pianist no longer performs with the ensemble but the group maintains an active performance schedule devoted to Glass' compositions.
The first Bachtoberfest as pat of The Complete Bach project will be Oct. 25 to 27 with four different all-Bach concerts in Mechanics Hall starting with CONCORA, a professional chorus from Connecticut led by Chris Shepard singing Cantatas BWV 70, 119, 120 Oct. 25. Shepard is also the artistic director of The Complete Bach Project and the Worcester Chorus. Organist Peter Edwin Krasinski will present Bach Organ Multimedia 4 p.m. Oct. 26 and Zlatomir Fung plays The Complete Cello Suites 7 p.m. Oct. 26. The new Bachtoberfest Choir completes the weekend Oct. 27 singing the Cantatas BWV 50 62 and 122.
Vengerov and pianist Polina Osetinskaya return to Worcester on Nov. 17 with a program including works by both Clara and Robert Schumann, Brahms and Prokofiev at Mechanics Hall.
The holiday season begins Dec. 6t at First Unitarian Church in Worcester with the Worcester Chamber Music Society performing Bach’s Christmas Cantatas BWV 32, 132, 151.
A Worcester tradition going back over 100 years continues with the annual performance of Handel’s Messiah by the Worcester Chorus on Dec. 7 in Mechanics Hall. Then a newer tradition, the annual Holiday Concert with the Worcester Chorus Women’s Ensemble, will be Dec. 22 in Trinity Lutheran Church.
The Rodney Marsalis Philadelphia Big Brass, considered America’s premier large brass ensemble, performs on Jan. 24 in Mechanics Hall. The band will include several numbers with the band program of South High Community School.
Imani Winds and Boston Brass will team up for an eclectic program on Feb. 14 at Tuckerman Hall with music by Bach, Katchaturian, de Falla, Piazzolla and Sandoval. The Academy of St Martin in the Fields from England will be joined by Liu, the first prize winner of the 2021 Chopin Piano Competition, on March 9 in Mechanics Hall.
Mechanics Hall will also be the site of the inaugural Bach’s Birthday Bash March 21 to 23 with four concerts including Jeremy Denk playing the Complete Keyboard Partitas March 21. On March 23 The Worcester Bach Collective will include Trinity Lutheran Church and All Saints Church choirs, WPI Choir, Master Singers of Worcester and Salisbury Singers performingCantatas BWV 28, 36, 40, 64 and 133.
The Sphinx Virtuosi, described by the Washington Post as a “unique group of young professional musicians ... immeasurable power, unwavering command and soulful beauty," will present "American Form/s, a journey through classically framed infusions of soul, bluegrass, jazz, blues, and elements of rag" on March 30 as a co-production between The Prior Performing Arts Center of the College of The Holy Cross and Music Worcester.
Moveable Feast: Bach Organist Recital on April 27 with Mark Mummert (assistant director of The Worcester Chorus, and cantor at Trinity Lutheran Church) and Wesley Hall (minister of music and the arts at First Baptist Church of Worcester) will keep The Complete Bach on track with an afternoon of organ music split between Trinity Lutheran and First Baptist churches in Worcester.
Grammy and Emmy Award winningTime for Three bring their mix of classical, Americana, and singer-songwriter styles to the BrickBox Theater on May 14, and the season concludes May 18 as the Worcester Chorus performs Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Charpentier’s Te Deum in Mechanics Hall.
"The season as a whole, especially when factoring in Summer@MW, preserves the engagement of renowned artists across so many genres that has been the organization's hallmark for decades. Giants of classical music are represented, but central figures in bluegrass, jazz, and crossover programming will be activating the amazing cultural venues of Greater Worcester as well," Finlay said.
'The full breadth of the performing arts'
Music Worcester is the umbrella organization of three merged components: the Worcester Music Festival, the International Artists Series and the Massachusetts Jazz Festival. It dates its origins back to 1858 when a music convention was held in the new Mechanics Hall. The Worcester Chorus operates under the auspices of Music Worcester. Recent seasons have featured a mix of classical orchestras, chamber music, world-renowned instrumentalists, world music, jazz, folk, opera, dance and ballet, and the Worcester Chorus.
Finlay said one of Music Worcester's key goals for the duration of The Complete Bach project "will be to ensure that the full programming of the organization continues to acknowledge the full breadth of the performing arts, and audiences can look forward to dance returning in the upcoming years as well. Stars aligned for the 2024-25 season to welcome a number of artists and ensembles very much straddling multiple genres and disciplines, as well as some of the most sought-after classical musicians."
The 2024-25 season will feature a number of collaborations and partnerships, Finlay noted, including the concert featuring The String Queens in conjunction with The Village Worcester, an Afrocentric cultural, learning and healing center. Partners for The Complete Bach this season will include Mechanics Hall, The Worcester Chorus, CONCORA, Worcester Chamber Music Society, First Unitarian Church, Handel & Haydn Society, Trinity Lutheran Church, All Saints Episcopal Church, Master Singers of Worcester, Worcester Children's Chorus, Salisbury Singers, First Baptist Church, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
For more information including the full 2024-25 season schedule visit musicworceser.org.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Music Worcester announces 166th season — 21 concerts and lots of Bach
