Viva Bach Peterborough has announced the schedule for its 2023 festival, which will take place at the Peterborough Town House from Oct. 20 to 22 under the artistic direction of Veronika Schreiber.
Building on its 2022 inaugural season, Viva Bach Peterborough will again bring musicians from across the country to play a full program of music by Johann Sebastian Bach. Also returning this year is the Viva Bach Festival Chorus, consisting of professional and community singers from across southern New Hampshire, conducted again by Colin Mann.
“I am thrilled that Viva Bach Peterborough can once again bring the music of J.S. Bach to the Monadnock region,” stated Artistic Director Veronika Schreiber. “Bach’s music encompasses everything human: our intelligence and emotions, our strengths and weaknesses, our multiplicity and singularity. Bach is needed, especially now, when our existence on the Earth is so fragile and our differences are highlighted like never before. Bach's music teaches us that even the most complicated puzzles can be solved through harmony.”
On Friday, Oct. 20, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., the program will be “The Goldberg Variations” performed by pianist Sergey Schepkin, who has been engaged for nearly 30 years in a large-scale project that aims to perform and record Bach’s keyboard works on the modern piano, while using historical performance practice as a source of inspiration.
The program on Saturday Oct. 21, from 7:30 to 9 p.m. is “Concertos and Arias.” Performing a program which includes four concertos and two arias are the musicians Veronika Schreiber (violin), Jaroslaw Lis (violin), SolomiyaIvakhiv (violin), Julia Glenn, (violin), IgnacyGaydamovich (cello), Kemp Jernigan (oboe), Gregory Hayes (harpsichord) and Mary Bonhag (soprano).
On Sunday, Oct. 22, from 3 to 5 p.m., the program is “Cantatas.” Conductor Colin Mann will lead a group of musicians, soloists and the festival chorus in cantatas BWV 230, BWV 102, and BWV 140 and the motet BVW 229. Mann is a graduate conductor of the Eastman School of Music, conductor and chorus master of Viva Bach Peterborough and music director of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges Community Chorus. From 2018 to 2022, Mann served as director of choirs at the Williston Northampton School in western Massachusetts.
Tickets to each individual concert are $25, with a three-day pass costing $75.00. Children can attend for free. The organization also believes that everyone should have access to Bach's music, regardless of ability to pay, so those requiring assistance will be accommodated. To donate to the festival, go to vivabachpeterborough.org/donate.