Masterworks, Quasthoff Lead 35th Anniversary Festival

April 7, 2004

The greatest stories ever sung—from Bach’s monumental St. Matthew Passion to the fiery drama of Mendelssohn’s Old Testament Elijah—are at the heart of the 2004 Oregon Bach Festival. The University of Oregon event celebrates its 35th anniversary season June 25-July 11 in Eugene.

Cofounder and Artistic Director Helmuth Rilling is revered by Festival audiences for his approach that delves deep into the meaning of the music. He returns with the Gächinger Kantorei, his Stuttgart choir, making their first West Coast appearance, and presides over 50 events that range from choral orchestral and chamber music concerts to lectures by eminent music journalists and a 75th birthday tribute to composer George Crumb.

Acclaimed bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff is back for his sixth Festival since his American debut here in 1995 and his only American appearance of the 2004 summer season. He swings through a night of jazz standards and bebop, interprets Schubert’s grand song cycle Die schone Mullerin in two concerts accompanied by Justus Zeyen, and sings the title role of Elijah in the Festival finale.

Bach’s Mass in B Minor showcases the Gächinger group, which Rilling founded 50 years ago. One of the world’s foremost Bach choirs, the Gächinger was the featured choir on Rilling’s 172-CD complete Bach edition, winner of the 2000 Cannes Classical prize.

The Mozart Requiem is thoroughly explored in three “Discovery Series” lecture-demonstrations and a full-scale performance July 2. In the lectures (June 28, 29, 30), Rilling examines the work’s glories and challenges, and then turns the baton over to the conductors of the Festival master class, who lead performances of the day’s section of the work.

Robert Levin, the keyboardist and musicologist who reconstructed the unfinished Requiem for a 1991 commission from Rilling and the Stuttgart Bachakademie, assists by demonstrating his approach to the completion.

Pianist Jeffrey Kahane—whose son Gabriel accompanies Quasthoff in the June 30 jazz program—adds a recital of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.

Other guest artists and special programs include
• Composer/conductor Krzysztof Penderecki leads the Festival orchestra in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and his own Flute Concerto, July 8.
• Choral conductor Maria Guinand of Venezuela lends a Latin-American touch to a concert with conductor Anton Armstrong and the Festival’s Youth Choral Academy, July 5.
• Dancer, author and philosopher Chungliang Al Huang, dances a “Tai Ji Musical Offering” to the music of Bach and Toru Takemitsu, June 28.
• Canadian trio Lorna McGhee, Heidi Krutzen, and David Harding perform a lilting “Celtic and Classical” program of music for flute, viola, and harp, July 9.
• The biennial Composers Symposium presents workshops and concerts in conjunction with the University of Oregon’s School of Music. This year’s symposium celebrates the music and 75th birthday of George Crumb with the composer in residence, July 2-3.
• “Music in the Press” features lectures by John Rockwell, senior cultural correspondent of the New York Times and Tim Page, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic of the Washington Post.

The Festival schedule includes more than 50 concerts and events on the UO campus and at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts in Eugene.