EVENT: Music City Baroque presents J.S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor – Sunday, March 25 at 3:00 p.m.: St. George’s Episcopal Church, 4715 Harding Pike, Belle Meade, Nashville – A rare opportunity to hear a live performance on period instruments with chamber choir of one of Bach’s greatest works.
DATE and TIME: Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 3:00 p.m.
PLACE: St. George’s Episcopal Church, 4715 Harding Pike, Belle Meade, Nashville
PROGRAM: Mass in B Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach:
PERFORMERS:
Instrumentalists of Music City Baroque, Murray Somerville, Music Director
Music City Baroque Chamber Chorus
assisted by St. George’s Choir, Gerry Senechal, Interim Director
Soloists: Terri Richter, Rebecca Davis, Megan Farmer, sopranos;
Mareike Sattler, Stephanie Nolan, mezzo-sopranos; Rachel Hansberry, alto;
Stanley Warren, tenor; Grant Farmer, baritone; Matthew Sedberg, bass
TICKETS: Free will donation at the door
INFORMATION: www.musiccitybaroque.org, 850-264-9293
“The B Minor Mass is not only considered one of the great landmark masterworks of all time, it is also the favorite composition of millions,” said the ensemble’s music director, Murray Somerville. “Music City Baroque is excited to present the first Nashville 'authentic' performance of the piece described at its first publication as 'the greatest musical artwork of all times and all people.”"
This performance will mark the end of Somerville’s tenure as leader of the ensemble. “We aim to create exactly the sonorities that Bach himself would have heard when he conducted the premiere of the first two sections of the work in the Sophienkirche in Dresden in 1733,” Somerville said. “Our performance of Bach's great Mass in B Minor at St. George's Church, the last MCB concert over which I will have the honor of presiding, includes, besides concertmaster Karen Clarke and oboist George Riordan, founding members of the ensemble, such local baroque specialists as flutist Jessica Dunnavant and natural horn player Angela DeBoer, as well as regular visitors such as baroque trumpeter Brian Shaw from LSU and bassoonist Keith Collins from Texas; with a vocal ensemble including such well-known baroque singers as soprano Terri Richter and tenor Stanley Warren, and St. George's Choir. The B Minor Mass is a work I have loved ever since first performing it under the great Karl Richter in Munich as a teenager, and it is a great thrill to have such a wonderful team of baroque specialists with which to bring it to Middle Tennessee at this time."
Music City Baroque, now in its eighth season, offers ensemble and chamber music of the 17thand 18thcenturies played on period instruments, in the style the composers would have expected, so that their music may be heard in all its original color and passion. Performers are drawn from members of the Nashville Symphony and faculties of the schools of music at Vanderbilt, Belmont and MTSU.
For more information, call George Riordan at 850-264-9293 or e-mail griordan@mtsu.edu
The final concert in the Music City Baroque 2011-12 season:
Fiddling Project II at the Loveless Barn – Monday, April 16, 2012 at 7:30 p.m.: Loveless Barn, 8400 Highway 100, Nashville – MCB continues its Fiddling Project with a performance at the Loveless Barn that will trace Tennessee’s musical roots, finding ties between fiddling and early “classical” violin playing.