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Diverse Concerts Focus on Bach

By Gerald Carpenter, Noozhawk Contributor | Posted on 11/14/2008

A cluster of events this weekend will feature the composer's works.

Whether by chance or design, a cluster of concerts this weekend will be devoted, all or in part, to the works of the baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). The argument from design, as it were, is just plausible since the two events with the highest profile — cellist Lynn Harrell at the Music Academy’s Hahn Hall, and the Santa Barbara Master Chorale at First Presbyterian — do not, mirabile dictu, conflict with each other.

Maestro Lynn Harrell will play and instruct at UCSB. (Christian Steiner photo)

Even if they did conflict on Saturday, if Harrell’s recital were at 8 p.m. instead of 4 p.m., one could still hear the greatest living cellist on Saturday and save the Master Chorale for Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. As it stands, a dedicated music lover could attend all of the events and still get in three square meals a day.

Harrell’s concert a Hahn Hall, at 4 p.m. Saturday, is sponsored by UCSB Arts & Lectures in association with the Music Academy of the West. He will play his own selection of Bach’s Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, any one of the six being the greatest example of the form, except for the other five. Each of them, if not exactly a meditation on eternity, certainly gives rise to such meditations in the listener.

The Master Chorale concerts — at 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday — will be conducted by Steve Hodson. The soloists will be soprano Nichole Dechaine, alto Susan Davies, tenor Grey Brothers and bass Michael Shasberger. The single work on the program is Bach’s Christmas Oratorio — a set of six cantatas or parts, each to be performed on a different day of the Christmas season.

If it seems a bit early for a holiday concert, I assure you the music will not get you thinking of mistletoe. This is not The Messiah (first performed at Easter 1742), but absolute music of a very high order. If it were not for the title, one would think it simply a series of Bach’s greatest cantatas.

Harrell also will teach a cello masterclass in the UCSB Music Department from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Friday in Music Room 1145. Admission is free. He will guide UCSB students through Max Bruch rhapsody, Kol Nidre (Kristen Wernick on cello and Sonia Tripathi on piano), the Allegro from Anton Dvorak’s Concerto in B minor, Opus 104 (Kathryn Mendenhall on cello and Natasha Kislenko on piano) and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Cello-Piano Sonata, Opus 19 (Hilary Clark on cello and Natasha Kislenko on piano).

Kislenko, on the UCSB faculty, at 8 p.m. Friday in Karl Geiringer Hall will support oboist Jessie Huntsman in a Bachelor of Music sophomore recital. The Nova Quartet will also play on the program, which includes music by Bach, Marcello and Hindemith. Admission is free.

At 3 p.m. Sunday in the sanctuary of the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara, 1535 Santa Barbara St., Kislenko will perform a recital of works by Tchaikovsky, Scriabin, Prokofiev, Schumann and, you guessed it, Bach.

Tickets to Harrell’s concert are $45 for general admission and $15 for UCSB students. Call UCSB Arts & Lectures at 805.893.3535 or click here.

For tickets ($8 to $18) to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, call 805.967.8287 or visit the Master Chorale online by clicking here. Tickets to see Kislenko are $15 for general admission and $10 for seniors and students. Click here or call 805.965.4583.

Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributor.

Diverse Concerts Focus on Bach

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