Her role in planning the 2018 festival is unclear.
McCoy said “absolutely” when EW asked whether she
was actively involved in planning Bach 2018.
Brad Foley, dean of the UO School of Music and Dance,
gave a slightly different account. “The artistic advisory
committee that I appointed in late September is overseeing
all planning for the 2018 festival,” he wrote in an email
to EW. “Ms. McCoy has been chiefly responsible for the
programming of the [Richard] Danielpour commission and
the Phillip Glass commission concerts that were previously
announced, and I am regularly asking for her input and
advice as our committee continues to develop our plans.
Ms. McCoy continues to oversee the day-to-day operations
of the Oregon Bach Festival.”
NO TRESPASSING
Meanwhile, Ackerman was not only fired by OBF, she
has been officially banned from the UO School of Music
and Dance.
During the 2017 festival, no longer employed or
accredited as a volunteer, Ackerman headed backstage at
the music school’s Beall Concert Hall to visit friends before
an OBF concert. Ackerman says she was asked to produce
OBF credentials and was not allowed backstage. She left,
she says.
A few nights later, she says, she was in the Beall Hall
lobby before a concert when two UO police officers asked
if she was Linda Ackerman and, when she said she was,
presented her with a formal notice and ordered her to leave
the property.
“I had been taking care of Matthew since he came to
the festival in 2007,” she says. “They presented me with a
trespass notice.” She was banned from the music school,
meaning she can no longer even attend concerts there,
Ackerman says, for 18 months.
Like Halls, Ackerman is no longer part of the Oregon
Bach Festival — and neither she nor Halls nor longtime
festival fans and supporters can find out why. ■
The Oregon Bach Festival, which had already shrunk in
size in 2017 compared to previous years, appears to be
getting even smaller in the wake of the firing of its artistic
director Matthew Halls.
Now that the festival is being run by the University of Or-
egon’s School of Music and Dance, its 2018 season is be-
In the wake of
ing planned by a seven-member committee named by Dean
Matthew Halls’ firing,
Brad Foley after Halls’ sudden termination last summer.
the festival tightens
While the committee has yet to make any announce-
even more
ments about the 2018 program, we’ve learned a few de-
tails about the planning so far:
Next summer’s festival will run, as scheduled, June 29 to July 14.
In what would be a big break with tradition, the opening-night concert might not involve choral music. Past
OBF seasons have generally opened with a sprawling choral work such as Bach’s Mass in B-minor.
“The committee is floating a number of ideas for the opening concert — some with chorus, some without,”
Foley said in an email. “No final decision has been made. The one thing we can say is that it will be an all-Bach
concert.”
The OBF Vocal Fellows program has been canceled. The program paid emerging professional singers to
come to Eugene and work with more-established pros. The Vocal Fellows would, for example, perform small solo
parts in large choral concerts; those roles will now go to OBF chorus members.
“The Vocal Fellows initiative has always been about offering unique, high-quality opportunities for aspiring solo-
ists,” Foley said. “In 2018, the nature of the proposed concert schedule and repertoire has led us back to a place
where we will once again recruit directly from our immensely talented chorus. The decision is not about a budget
cut or a cancelation of a program. It is about finding the best talent and providing more opportunities.”
The future of the OBF Master Conducting Class is uncertain. Long the backstage heart of the festival, the
master conducting class brought emerging conductors from around the country to study under founding Artistic
Director Helmuth Rilling and, later, under Matthew Halls.
The student conductors would lead performances of the works they had studied in informal public concerts
called the Discovery Series, last year named the (re)Discovery Series. Current plans are to continue the Discovery
Series but cut the conducting class at least this year.
“The Conducting Master Class is likely to go on hiatus in 2018,” Foley confirmed.
The Discovery Series, he said, will continue in 2018 with a different focus. “The repertoire will be focused on
Bach cantatas, and they will be presented in a lecture/demonstration type mode.”
Finally, the world premiere of The Passion of Yeshua, a new work commissioned by OBF from Richard Dan-
ielpour, is to go ahead as scheduled, as is a performance of Phillip Glass’ new Piano Concerto No. 3, with
Simone Dinnerstein.
OBF
2018:
STILL SHRINKING
eugeneweekly.com • November 22, 2017
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