Courtesy the Oregon Bach Festival
Oregon Bach Festival conductor and founder Helmuth Rilling is releasing 160 CDs of interpretations of Bach’s work.
Oregon Bach Festival vows to
stun all music aficionados
By Rory Carroll
Oregon Daily Emerald
For many students, summer in
Eugene connotes long, laid-back
days in the depopulated metrop
olis. What many don’t realize is
that Eugene is the epicenter of the
world-renowned Oregon Bach
Festival, a gala that has gained in
ternational attention for its
achievement and excellence.
Begun in 1970 by organist and
conductor Helmuth Rilling as a
week-long collection of perform
ances and workshops, the festival
has blossomed into an interna
tional event that expects to top its
record 30,000-plus audience from
last year.
This year’s festival is celebrat
ing the 250-year anniversary of Jo
hann Sebastian Bach’s death with
the most ambitious event yet.
From June 23 through July 9, the
Hult Center for the Performing
Arts and Beall Concert Hall will
honor Bach’s memory with per
formances by nationally known
conductors, including Rilling,
Miguel Harth-Bedoya and Fred
Sjoberg.
This year’s crowd will be treat
ed to performances from a variety
of musical styles, including sever
al international choirs that will
fly to Eugene to perform at the fes
tival.
The choirs’ project is called
“International Voices: A Bridge to
the Future.” The key components
to the project include the world
premiers of a traditional song
from each choirs’ homeland by a
native composer. These com
posers will be on hand for the per
formance, which will take place
on the opening night of the festi
val Friday.
The primary reason that the fes
tival focuses on Bach is because
Rilling, the artistic director, is
from Germany and is one of the
world’s specialists in the interpre
tation of Bach’s music, according
to H. Royce Saltzman, Executive
Director for the Bach Festival.
Rilling is releasing 160 CDs of
interpretations of Bach’s work on
the German label Htinssler Classic,
which will be distributed in the
BMG record club catalog, opening
its market to millions worldwide.
While the festival emphasizes
Bach, it is not only interested
only in Bach. Saltzman said that
there will also be performances of
Mendelssohn and Beethoven.
“The thread that goes through
the tapestry you might say is
Bach,” Saltzman said.
George Evano, Director of Com
munications for the 30-year-old
festival, said that the theme of this
year’s gala is Music Beyond
Boundaries.
“If there is any composer
whose music is beyond any con
strictions or restriction of a time
period, it’s Bach,” Evano said.
According to Saltzman, the ver
satility of Bach’s music is what
has kept it popular.
“Bach’s music has been pretty
much universal,” Evano said.
Evano said that his relatively
recent addition to the marketing
staff has been an easy transition
because the festival has been a
success since its inception in
1970 and has enjoyed incremen
tal growth, particularly in the past
5 years.
“When I came here it was a
pretty mature organization, so it
had reached the level of populari
ty that was pretty high for an arts
group,” Evano said.
This year’s festival sets out to
top last year’s festival by adding
more events.
“This year is the most ambi
tious festival since I’ve been here.
There are almost 50 events,”
Evano said. “It will be a much
larger final attendance because
it’s program-driven.”
While the festival is legally an
entity of the University music
school, in reality it is a self-sup
ported arts organization. Bach
Festival coordinators raise monev
from sponsors and donors to
flourish. Last year, the festival
had ticket buyers from 30 states
and private donations from more
than 20 states.
“At the heart of the festival, ed
ucation has always been at its
core,” Scott Barkhurst, director of
publicity for the school of music,
said. The festival sprung from
summer classes at the music
school. On a trip to Germany,
Saltzman met Rilling and invited
him to Eugene to teach.
“The thing grew incremental
ly,” Barkhurst said, and added
that education has remained at
the festival’s nucleus.
Many media outlets have
picked up on the festival’s re
markable development. The Los
Angeles Times, The San Francis
co Examiner and The Washington
Post have all given nods to the Eu
gene-based Bach Festival.
Evano said that the 250th an
niversary is a good time to reflect
on how central a figure Bach is in
music.
“While other composers from
his time period like Vivaldi or
Handel, when music people
Courtesy Oregon Bach Festival
Thomas Quasthoff
think of them they think, ‘That’s
Baroque music,’” Evano said.
“But to the Romantic composers
a century later, he was just as wild
and an inspiration to them. And
then to the composers of the ear
ly 20th century, he was this math
ematical genius.”
Sure to be a highlight of the fes
tival will be the performance of
“American Songbook” by
Thomas Quasthoff on Sunday.
His baritone voice lends itself
beautifully to jazz interpretations
of Bach’s work.
Quasthoff will also perform on
opening night along with the
choirs who will band together un
der the direction of Conductor
Harth-Bedoya of the Eugene Sym
phony for Beethoven’s “Sympho
ny No. 9.”
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