Welcome This July we celebrate an extraordinary milestone—the 75th anniversary of this remarkable Festival. Many of you will have heard or experienced the buzz of excitement emanating from the Peninsula during the 2011 Festival; we are now looking forward to the chance to build on our considerable successes to make the 75th anniversary a celebration to remember! This year offers us a wonderful opportunity to look both forward to innovative programming and back to greatly respected traditions. With the theme Bach: Spheres of Influence, Festival programs will explore the impact of J.S. Bach by juxtaposing his music with works from England, Europe, Russia, Mexico, South America, and the United States. We open Saturday night with a grand scale performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass and follow this on Sunday afternoon with a rare performance of Handel’s magnificent oratorio, Alexander’s Feast, depicting the exoticism of Persia and the futility of power and war. Hidden within the fabric of this oratorio, and alongside Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3, will be a commissioned work by the distinctive American composer Curt Cacioppo and Handel’s Harp Concerto. Monday nights Concertmaster Peter Hanson returns with a spectacular baroque concert of Italian concerti and concerti grossi, Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2 featuring Janet See on baroque flute and some contrasting tango music. Where would we be without the wit and entertainment of David Gordon? This year he reveals in our Tuesday night concerts the styles and themes from the last 75 years in a startling and fascinating mélange ending with the Finale to Mozart’s Magic Flute. Due to renovations at the Mission, the ever popular Wednesday evening Mission concerts move to the larger Sunset Theater for a sumptuous program of South American and Mexican choral music coupled with Bach’s exquisite Mass in G Minor, skillfully directed by Festival Chorale Director Andrew Megill. Thursday nights continue our new and very successful crossover series, bringing in artists from other disciplines who also share with us a love of J.S. Bach. This year it is the turn of the virtuosic mandolin duo, Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg, two of the top players in the U.S. and Europe. They will delight you with Bach and Vivaldi, bluegrass and Bulgarian folk music accompanied by a quintet of our Festival strings. Friday nights bring the grand orchestral concert which includes Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4—rounding off the complete cycle of his orchestral suites performed during this Festival—a Stravinsky neo-baroque masterpiece in the form of the Pulcinella Suite and one of the first ever period style performance in America of Brahms’s glorious Second Symphony. Interspersed with the major concerts we will weave our delightful mix of chamber concerts and solo recitals. And I look forward to continuing our successful open rehearsal format, hoping to bring the music ever closer. Finally, we complete the 75th Anniversary celebration with our popular “Best of the Fest” concert, enabling you to relive your favorite moments of the Festival. I hope so much that you will experience a truly celebratory Festival with exciting themes interwoven to ravish the ear and expand the mind.
LIVE MORE
DEEPLY
Paul Goodwin, Music Director and Conductor
SEASON SPONSOR Claudine Torfs
b a c h f e s t i va l . o r g
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