Two Premieres Headline '05 Festival

The buzz runs unbridled—and partially in a Spanish accent—about two upcoming premieres and a music-packed schedule of 50 events to take place at the 2005 Oregon Bach Festival, the University of Oregon’s eminent classical music offering June 23-July 10 in Eugene.

La Pasión Según San Marcos by Osvaldo Golijov sets the Passion according to Saint Mark in the form of a Brazilian street festival, with percussionists, brass, dancers, and the rhythms of tango, bembé, and rhumba.

Commissioned by Helmuth Rilling, the Oregon festival’s artistic director, for German Bach celebrations in the year 2000, La Pasión has become a monumental, barrier-breaking, multicultural sensation and has been described as “the first indisputably great composition of the 21st century” by critic Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe.

La Pasión opens the Festival with two performances June 23-24. Maria Guinand of Venezuela, who conducted the Stuttgart world premiere, leads her own Schola Cantorum chorus, Brazilian pop-jazz singer Luciana Souza, and an “Orquesta la Pasión” that emphasizes percussion, brass, and guitars.

Helmuth Rilling is also responsible for uncovering a lost opera by 19th century Romanticist Felix Mendelssohn. The Uncle from Boston, a full-scale comic opera written by the wunderkind composer at age 14, was recently found in a Berlin library. Its first public performance last October in Essen, Germany was received with tremendous and tender enthusiasm. Rilling says the lost “uncle” clearly puts Mendelssohn on par with the young Mozart. On July 3, America gets to embrace this unknown opera for the first time in a concert setting.

On Sunday, June 26, Rilling conducts Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in a two-concert, “Bach to Bach” format. In the Discovery Series of six lecture-concerts, he leads the exploration of Bach cantatas based on themes of joy and celebration. And in the July 10 finale, the Festival’s founding artistic director conducts the orchestra, chorus, and soloists in Haydn’s Creation.

Guest artists include:
• Paris-based John Nelson, conducting Handel’s L’allegro, a sparkling choral work based on the texts of Milton
• The trailblazing Kronos Quartet, who will perform works composed and arranged by Golijov
• Period instrument specialists Tempesta di Mare, in two programs focusing on Bach and Handel
• The Imani Winds, a quintet whose name in Swahili means faith and whose music explores European, African and American music traditions.

Completing the schedule are a performance of the Faure Requiem by the high school singers of the Festival’s Youth Choral Academy, conducted by Anton Armstrong; three concerts of new works in the Composers Symposium series featuring the Fireworks ensemble; a trio of free organ recitals at neighborhood churches; Saturday morning children’s concerts, and a full schedule of lectures and talks.

Each year, musicians and music lovers from 33 states and eleven countries make the Oregon Bach Festival their musical destination. Tickets range from $14-$49 and go on sale March 22, 2005. For more information, call (800) 457-1486.