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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Schuller-Led ‘St. John Passion’ Will Highlight Two Weeks Of Bach Festival

Travis Rivers Correspondent

FROM FOR THE RECORD (Saturday, February 1, 1997): Correction The Northwest Bach Festival concert Sunday at Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral is at 3 p.m. (the pre-concert lecture is at 2 p.m.), the concert Tuesday at St. John’s Cathedral is at 5 p.m. and the final “St. John’s Passion” concert is on Feb. 9. The schedules in Thursday’s IN Life and Friday’s Weekend entertainment section said otherwise.

Once more, with a passion, Bach is back. The 19th annual Northwest Bach Festival starts Friday with a recital of chamber music and culminates next week with two performances of Bach’s “St. John Passion” led by the festival’s artistic director, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gunther Schuller.

Friday’s concert features music by Bach and his Italian contemporaries performed by flutist Michael Faust, harpsichordist Ilton Wjuniski and viola da gambist Margriet Tindemans.

The concert is the musical beginning of the 17 performances, lectures and master classes of this year’s Bach Festival, sponsored by Connoisseur Concerts.

Eastern Washington University’s Bach Seminars begin this afternoon with an introductory talk to the series by EWU lecturer Kendall Feeney at the university’s Cheney campus. The concerts and seminars are available for college credit through EWU.

Both Faust and Wjuniski were winners of the 1986 Pro Musicis Award. Faust is the solo flutist of the Cologne (Germany) Radio Orchestra. Wjuniski lives near Paris and teaches at the Claude Debussy Conservatory there. The duo has recorded a three-album set of the sonatas of Bach, his sons and Mozart for the GM label.

Tindemans, who currently heads the early music program at the University of Washington, has performed with many of the best known early music groups. She currently tours and records with ensembles such as The King’s Noyse, the Seattle Baroque Trio and The Medieval Strings.

Bach was best known in his own time as a virtuoso organist. His organ music is featured Sunday evening in a recital by Boston Symphony organist James David Christi at Spokane’s Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral.

Christi was the first American to win first prize at the International Organ Competition in Bruges, Belgium, winning both the competition’s jury award as well as the honor voted by the audience. In addition to Bach, his program will include works by two organists whom Bach greatly admired, Dietrich Buxtehude and Johann Adan Reincken. Christi’s concert is free.

Faust, Wjuniski and Tindemans will appear again in concert on Feb. 5 with music by Bach’s family - an extended “family” that includes three of Bach’s sons; a student, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg (for whom Bach wrote the “Goldberg” Variations), and Bach’s friend, lutenist Sylvanus Leopold Weiss.

The lute works by Weiss will be played by Catherine Liddell, once of America’s outstanding lutenists. Liddell is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and holds a soloist’s diploma from Switzerland’s Schola Cantorum Basilensis, where she studied with Eugen Dombois. She has toured with such groups as the Smithsonian Chamber Players, Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra and Boston’s Haydn & Handel Society.

This concert also will feature four musicians from the Spokane Symphony: violinist Kelly Farris, oboist Keith Thomas, cellist Cheryl Carney and bassoonist Barbara Novak.

The climax of this year’s Bach Festival will be two performances of Bach’s “St. John Passion, ” a work Bach originally wrote in 1724 and performed again and again throughout his life, making revisions along the way.

Schuller and the Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus will be joined by soprano Janet Brown, mezzo-soprano JoAnne Bouma, tenor Rockland Osgood and bass-baritone James Maddelena. The Bach Festival Chorus was prepared by Gonzaga University music professor Edward Schaefer.

All of the vocal soloists have appeared in Spokane in previous performances of Bach works. Brown, who teaches at Syracuse University, has sung at the Boston Early Music Festival and in opera at the PepsiCo Summerfare. Bouma, a voice instructor at Gonzaga University, sings frequently with the Spokane Symphony, Uptown Opera and on other Spokane music series. Maddelena is probably best known for his televised performance as Nixon in John Adams’ “Nixon in China” or for his appearances in the series of Mozart operas directed by Peter Sellers. Maddelena will present a master class for voice students at Whitworth College as a part of the Bach Seminar series.

Osgood has not appeared in previous Bach Festival performances, but he sang the role of the Evangelist in a Spokane performance of the “St. John Passion” presented in 1991 by the Whitworth Choir and the EWU Baroque Orchestra. Osgood has since sung with the Boston Symphony, has toured nationally with the Boston Camerata and been a soloist in performances at the New England Bach Festival and the Brevard Festival.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: BACH FESTIVAL SCHEDULE Here is a complete schedule of Bach Festival events. Tickets are available at G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT. For information about college credit for the Bach Festival seminars, call 359-2241.

Today, lecture: “Introducing the 1997 Bach Festival,” Kendall Feeney, EWU Music Building, Rm. 238, noon, free Friday, concert: “Bach and the Italian Music,” The Met, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Pre-concert lecture at 7 by Verne Windham. Saturday: organ master class by James David Christie, Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, 9:30 a.m., free. Saturday, lecture-demonstration: “Harpsicord Happening,” Greg Presley, Holy Names Music Center, 10 a.m. Free, but reservations required; call 326-9516. Sunday, concert: James David Christie, organ, Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, 3 p.m., free. Pre-concert lecture at 2 by Windham. Monday, lecture: “Crimes of the Passion,” Ann LeBar, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 3 p.m., free. Tuesday, concert: Ilton Wjuniski and Michael Faust, EWU Pence Union Building, noon, free. Tuesday, lecture: “Bach Family Values,” Travis Rivers, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 4:30 p.m., free. Tuesday, Afternoon with the Artist: Margriet Tindemans, viola da gambist, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 5 p.m., free. Wednesday, Afternoon with the Artist: Gunther Schuller and the EWU Orchestra, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, 3 p.m., free. Wednesday, concert: “Chamber Music and the Bach Family,” The Met, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 7 by Windham. Feb. 6, Afternoon with the Artist: Catherine Liddell, lutenist, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, 3 p.m., free. Feb. 6, Afternoon with the Artist: James Maddalena, bass-baritone, Whitworth College Music Building Recital Hall, 3:30 p.m., free. Feb. 6, lecture: “The Drama of J.S. Bach’s ‘St. John Passion,”’ Kendall Feeney, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 4:30 p.m., free. Feb. 7, Afternoon with the Artist: Janet Brown, soprano, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, noon, free. Feb. 7, concert: Bach’s “St. John Passion,” First Presbyterian Church, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 7 by Windham. Feb. 8, concert: “St. John Passion,” First Presbyterian Church, 3 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 2 by Windham.

This sidebar appeared with the story: BACH FESTIVAL SCHEDULE Here is a complete schedule of Bach Festival events. Tickets are available at G&B; Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT. For information about college credit for the Bach Festival seminars, call 359-2241.

Today, lecture: “Introducing the 1997 Bach Festival,” Kendall Feeney, EWU Music Building, Rm. 238, noon, free Friday, concert: “Bach and the Italian Music,” The Met, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Pre-concert lecture at 7 by Verne Windham. Saturday: organ master class by James David Christie, Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, 9:30 a.m., free. Saturday, lecture-demonstration: “Harpsicord Happening,” Greg Presley, Holy Names Music Center, 10 a.m. Free, but reservations required; call 326-9516. Sunday, concert: James David Christie, organ, Our Lady of Lourdes Cathedral, 3 p.m., free. Pre-concert lecture at 2 by Windham. Monday, lecture: “Crimes of the Passion,” Ann LeBar, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 3 p.m., free. Tuesday, concert: Ilton Wjuniski and Michael Faust, EWU Pence Union Building, noon, free. Tuesday, lecture: “Bach Family Values,” Travis Rivers, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 4:30 p.m., free. Tuesday, Afternoon with the Artist: Margriet Tindemans, viola da gambist, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, 5 p.m., free. Wednesday, Afternoon with the Artist: Gunther Schuller and the EWU Orchestra, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, 3 p.m., free. Wednesday, concert: “Chamber Music and the Bach Family,” The Met, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 7 by Windham. Feb. 6, Afternoon with the Artist: Catherine Liddell, lutenist, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, 3 p.m., free. Feb. 6, Afternoon with the Artist: James Maddalena, bass-baritone, Whitworth College Music Building Recital Hall, 3:30 p.m., free. Feb. 6, lecture: “The Drama of J.S. Bach’s ‘St. John Passion,”’ Kendall Feeney, EWU Music Building, Rm. 248, 4:30 p.m., free. Feb. 7, Afternoon with the Artist: Janet Brown, soprano, EWU Music Building Recital Hall, noon, free. Feb. 7, concert: Bach’s “St. John Passion,” First Presbyterian Church, 8 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 7 by Windham. Feb. 8, concert: “St. John Passion,” First Presbyterian Church, 3 p.m. Tickets: $16 and $18 for adults; $8 students. Preconcert lecture at 2 by Windham.