Joyous Bach: From big events to small, maestro Helmuth Rilling aims to bring out the joy

By Paul Denison 
The Register-Guard

"Feel the Joy'' is the theme of the 36th Oregon Bach Festival, which opens Thursday and runs through July 10.

Major concerts that obviously fit the theme include the comic opera that Felix Mendelssohn wrote when he was a teenager, "The Uncle From Boston" (the American premiere), J.S. Bach's Christmas Oratorio and six of his cantatas, G.F. Handel's "L'Allegro" (with guest conductor John Nelson) and F.J. Haydn's "The Creation," which Bach Festival artistic director Helmuth Rilling considers "the happiest and most joyful oratorio in the history of music."

Executive director Royce Saltzman says the festival's "overarching idea" of joy can be felt even in the ostensibly darker work which will kick off the festival: Osvaldo Golijov's La Pasíon Según San Marcos, a Latin American Lenten carnival version of events leading to the crucifixion of Jesus.

Rilling commissioned this work from Golijov, a Jewish composer who grew up in a Catholic country. Golijov's Pasíon has stunned and wowed audiences in Germany, New York, Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.

This will be the Northwest premiere, sung by conductor Maria Guinand's Schola Cantorum de Caracas, Venezuela.

To complement these major choral-orchestral works, the festival's Intimate Evenings series will offer up close and personal music-making with various soloists.

This mostly instrumental series also includes two choral concerts, featuring Schola Cantorum de Caracas and a live-recording performance of Christmas and holiday music by the festival choir, directed by Kathy Romey and Peter Hopkins.

The Kronos Quartet will devote half of its program to Latin American music written or arranged for them by Golijov.

The festival also includes three children's programs, four organ concerts and four "On the House" performances including one by Divisi, a national award-winning women's a cappella group from the University of Oregon.