35th Annual Music Fest to Present Back-to-Back Bach

For its 35th anniversary season, the Bach Week Festival in Evanston is returning to its roots — going Bach to the future — with every concert devoted exclusively to the music of its namesake, Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750).

Festival concerts will be presented on May 2, 4, and 9, all at the Music Institute of Chicago, 1490 Chicago Ave., in downtown Evanston.

“The festival will showcase the range of Bach’s genius — from intimate pieces for solo instruments to grand works for chorus, soloists, and orchestra,” said Richard Webster, the festival’s music director. Webster played harpsichord at the inaugural festival in 1974 and has been music director since 1975.

Performers are the Bach Week Festival Orchestra, many of whom are members of the Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera of Chicago orchestras; the Bach Week Festival Chorus; and distinguished instrumental and vocal soloists.

Chicago Symphony flutist Louise Dixon played at the first Bach Week Festival in 1974 — the same year she joined the CSO — and has missed only one festival. She echoes comments of other top-rank local musicians who feel a deep personal connection to the event. “I love to play the music of Bach,” she says. “He has written some of the most beautiful music in the entire repertoire for my instrument. To play this music in an intimate setting with really first-rate instrumentalists and singers is a labor of love.”

Michael Henoch, the CSO’s assistant principal oboist, also played in the first Bach Week Festival and has performed in almost all of them. Though he’s unable to participate this year because of a schedule conflict, he says, “My heart and soul are with the festival. It’s a chance to perform music I’ve loved all my life, with wonderful colleagues who feel the same way. I encourage the community to support the people who work so hard to make this happen.”

The 2008 festival comprises four concerts of back-to-back Bach to be held over three days, including an atmospheric “candlelight concert” of solo harpsichord music.