Bach Week Festival
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News
For Immediate Release
Bach Week Musicians to Perform
in Chicago’s Rookery Building
March 22 at 12:30 p.m.
Free pop-up concert in Loop landmark is local entry
in annual worldwide Bach in the Subways project
to promote classical music
EVANSTON, Ill., March 1, 2019 — Musicians from the Chicago area’s Bach Week Festival will give a free public performance of music by German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach from 12:30 to 12:50 p.m. on Friday, March 22, 2019, in the skylit lobby of Chicago’s historic Rookery Building, 209 S. LaSalle Street.
The pop-up concert, organized and conducted by Bach Week’s music director Richard Webster, is Chicago’s link to the 2019 international Bach in the Subways project, March 21–24.
Bach in the Subways is a volunteer, grassroots movement to promote classical music through free concerts in public spaces on or around Bach’s March 21 birthday. According to the organization, nearly 100 cities worldwide will be hosting performances this season, which marks the 334th anniversary of Bach’s birth.
All Bach in the Subway performances are free to the public. Performers donate their services.
An ensemble of about 20 Bach Week Festival choristers and several members of chamber choir Bella Voce, plus cellist David Cunliffe, double bassist Jonathan Cegys, and keyboard artist Jason Moy will perform two Bach motets: “Fürchte dich nicht” (Fear not), BWV 228; and “Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden” (Praise the Lord, all nations), BWV 230.
According to Bach in the Subways’ website, the organization seeks “to bring live Bach to as many people around the world as possible – especially to those who would not normally hear it.”
The project traces its origin to 2010, when cellist Dale Henderson began performing Bach’s solo Cello Suites in New York City subways.
The Rookery was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1972 after being added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Designed by architects Daniel Burnham and John Wellborn Root, the Rookery was originally completed in 1888. Frank Lloyd Wright redesigned the two-story lobby in 1905.
The Bach Week Festival, founded in Evanston, Ill., in 1974, is one of the Midwest’s premiere Baroque music events. The festival enlists musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago Orchestra, and other top-tier ensembles, while featuring some of the Chicago area’s finest instrumental and vocal soloists and distinguished guest artists from out of town.
The 46th annual Bach Week Festival will run from April 26 to May 3, 2019, at locations in Evanston and Chicago. More information at bachweek.org.
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