This December, WKCR celebrates our 40th Annual Bach Festival. For eight days from 1:00 am on December 24th through New Year's Eve at midnight, WKCR will dedicate all broadcasting to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.
J.S. Bach has had an unparalleled influence on the Western classical tradition. He has inspired a worldwide following dedicated to performing and celebrating his work, as well as a devoted and rigorous academic tradition. Each day of the Bach Festival 2017 will feature many of Bach's masterpieces as well as many different presentations on the material. Bach Festival 2017 will include the familiar voices of WKCR programmers, and will also feature guest scholars and performers presenting on different facets of Bach's legacy.
Some new programs of note coming to BachFest 2017 include material presented by Pulitzer prize-winning music critic and WKCR alumni Tim Page, a brand new recording of Books One and Two of The Well-Tempered Clavier by harpsichordist and WKCR alumna Rebecca Pechefsky, and more. Frequent guest and veteran Bach scholar Teri Towe will be opening and closing with the Goldberg Variations on Christmas Eve, will present recordings that could have been played at the first BachFest on Christmas Day, and then on the 29th lead us through various recordings made by great Bach interpreters of the past who were born in December or January (including Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Rosalyn Tureck, Pablo Casals, Irma Rogell and William H. Scheide, the founder of the Bach Aria Group, among others).
A schedule of some major works (subject to change) is as follows:
Sunday, December 24th
9:00 am: Goldberg Variations
Monday, December 25th
9:00 pm: St. Mark Passion
Tuesday, December 26th
3:00 pm: Well-Tempered Clavier, Harpsichord
9:00 pm: St. John Passion
Wednesday, December 27th
9:00 am: Tim Page broadcast
12:00 pm: Anna Magdalena
6:00 pm: Easter Oratorio
Thursday, December 28th
3:00 pm: Peter Evans special
9:00 pm: Mass in B Minor (Karl Richter version)
Friday, December 29th
9:00 pm: Cantatas
Saturday, December 30th
12:00 pm: Magnificat
9:00 pm: Ascension Oratorio
Sunday, December 31st
12:00 pm: The Art of the Fugue
6:00 pm: Musical Offering
9:00 pm: St. Matthew Passion
