Bach Fest Wraps Up At Cathedral, Met

The Northwest Bach Festival ends its 20th season with concerts tonight at St. John’s Cathedral and Sunday afternoon at The Met.

Tonight’s all-Bach program features two of the Brandenburg Concertos along with the Cantata No. 60. Sunday’s chamber music concert presents music by J.S. Bach; his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann; along with music by Bohemian composers Heinrich Biber, Johann Schmelzer and Jan Dismas Zelenka.

Tonight, festival artistic director Gunther Schuller will lead the Bach Festival Orchestra Choir in Bach’s Sanctus in D, joined by soloists alto JoAnne Bouma, tenor Fritz Robertson and bass-baritone Robert Honeysucker for the cantata “O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort.” The festival orchestra will play the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and will combine with soloists Gale Coffee, flute, and Kelly Farris, violin, and harpsichordist Ilton Wjuniski in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.

The 44-member choir was trained under the direction of Tamara Schupman, director of the Spokane Area Children’s Chorus.

Bouma is a well-known soloist on Spokane’s vocal scene, having appeared with the Spokane Symphony, Uptown Opera and in previous Bach Festivals.

Honeysucker and Robertson are new to the festival this year. Honeysucker has sung with the Boston Symphony and the Bach Aria group along with other orchestras and opera companies. Robertson is a graduate of Boston University and Ball State University, and is widely recognized for performances ranging from baroque cantatas to the musical “Hello, Dolly.”

Coffee and Farris are both members of the Spokane Symphony. Wjuniski, in addition to a busy career as a harpsichord soloist and recording artist, teaches at the Conservatoire Claude Debussy in Paris.

Wjuniski and viola da gambist Margriet Tindemans, frequent Bach Festival soloists in previous seasons, will be guest performers with the Spokane String Quartet in works that cover a wide gamut of music, including a fugue by J.S. Bach, a harpsichord concerto by W.F Bach and a wildly funny Sonata Representativa (frogs, cuckoos and cats are among the population of this piece) by Heinrich Biber, featuring Spokane Symphony violinist Karen Walthinsen.

Tindemans is a founding member of the medieval ensemble Sequentia, performs with several European and American early music groups and directs the Northwest Center for Early Music at the University of Washington.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BACH SCHEDULE 20th Annual Northwest Bach Festival Today Ilton Wjuniski, Bach Festival harpsichordist, with the Spokane String Quartet in concert, EWU Music Building Recital Hall in Cheney, noon. (Free) Brandenburg Concertos Nos. 3 and 5 and Cantata No. 60. Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus with Kelly Farris, violin, Gale Coffee, flute, Ilton Wjuniski, harpsichord, JoAnne Bouma, alto, Fritz Robertson, tenor and Robert Honeysucker, bass-baritone; St. John’s Cathedral, 8 p.m.; pre-concert talk at 7 p.m. ($16, $8 for students)

Saturday Morning master class with Bach Festival baritone Robert Honeysucker, Whitworth College Music Building Recital Hall, 10 a.m. (Free) Afternoon with Bach Festival tenor Fritz Robertson, Gonzaga University Hughes Auditorium, 1 p.m. (Free)

Sunday Chamber music recital with Ilton Wjuniski, harpsichord, Margriet Tindemans, viola da gamba, and the Spokane String Quartet, 3 p.m.; pre-concert talk at 2 p.m., The Met. ($16, $8 for students)

For information about the 1998 Bach Festival call Connoisseur Concerts at 326-4942.