BART invites local musicians to participate in Bach in the Subways program
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(BCN) — BART invites local musicians to participate in its Bach in the Subways program, beginning Thursday and ending on the 339-year anniversary of the German composer’s birth March 31. This year’s event begins at 4 p.m. Thursday at the Downtown Berkeley station, where Junior Bach kids will be playing violin, piano, recorder and cello under the rotunda.
Last year, seven groups participated, but there’s room for more. Musicians of any age still have time to participate.
“We are paying close attention to any requests that come in,” BART spokesperson Anna Duckworth said.
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The coming and going of trains throughout the system is a perfect metaphor for Johann Sebastian Bach’s use of musical counterpoint, when two or more similar sounding musical lines are played together along independent rhythms.
“There’s this special face that people get when they start playing Bach, I call it Bach Face, and I think his music has an uncanny capacity to draw people in and connect them unlike no other composer,” said New York musician Dale Henderson, who started playing alone in the subway in 2010.
Today, the Bach in the Subways program has grown into musicians playing Bach in public spaces, like subway stations, in 150 cities across 40 countries.
“Suddenly, classical musicians get to perform without any of the formal trappings of a classical music setting. The principal cellist of the Vienna Philharmonic has joined us a bunch of times. It’s just a very pure way to connect with the audience,” Henderson said.
There is no tipping involved. Travelers through the Bay Area can listen to the music in the free areas of select stations. A regularly updated performance schedule can be found at bachinthesubways.org/san-francisco/.
To perform at a station, musicians must first register at bachinthesubways.org/register-a-performance/ and obtain a free Expressive Activity Permit from BART through bartca.portal.opengov.com.
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