Bach Festival Includes Beethoven, Modern Dance

The 106^th Bethlehem Bach Festival, an annual rite of spring for the Bach Choir of Bethlehem and its fans, gets under way this weekend and resumes May 10 and 11 at Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center and Packer Memorial Church.

The festival is the culmination of a yearlong celebration of Greg Funfgeld’s 30^th year as the choir’s artistic director and conductor.

In addition to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach—whose monumental Mass in B Minor is the festival’s centerpiece and conclusion -- this year’s festival will include works by Beethoven and American composer Morten Lauridsen.

New to this year’s festival is the addition of modern dance from New York’s Rioult Dance. The two Saturday mornings of the festival, the dance company will be interpreting Bach’s Art of Fugue, Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 6 in G Major and the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6.

For information and tickets go to www.bach.org  Phone: 610-866-4382 Toll-free: 888-743-3100

Tickets: Adults $20-$57, Students $10-$20 

Schedule

Fridays. May 3 & 10:

• 2 p.m. – Distinguished Scholar Lecture – Dr. Michael Marissen, Black Box Theatre, Zoellner Arts Center

• 4 p.m. – Packer Memorial Church, Bach & Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, Bach Cantatas 71 – Gott ist mein König and Cantata 180 – Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele; Beethoven Choral Fantasy for chorus, orchestra, and piano solo Op.80 

• 5:30 p.m. - Buffet Dinner with informal talk – Dr. Larry Lipkis, Asa Packer Room, Lehigh University Center

• 8 p.m. – Packer Memorial Church, Bach & Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, Bach Cantata 119 – Preise Jerusalem, den Herrn, Lauridsen Lux Aeterna, Bach Cantata 1 – Wie Schön leauchtet der Morgenstern

Saturdays May 4 & 11

• 10:30 a.m. – Baker Hall, Zoellner Arts Center, Rioult Dance and the Bach Festival Orchestra, Views of the Fleeting World to seven movements of Bach’s great Art of Fugue; City to the Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 6 in G major; Celestial Tides to the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6

• 12:30 p.m. - Festival Picnic Lunch - tent adjacent to Zoellner Arts Center

• 2:30 p.m. - The Mass in B Minor (Part 1) and 4:30pm (Part 2), Packer Memorial Church