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Meet the Washington Bach Consort

© Eugenia E. Gratto

In honor of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach's death, the Washington Bach Consort will tour Germany in June, visiting and performing in several cities including Stralsund, Köthen, Leipzig (Where Bach composed and conducted for nearly a quarter-century), Weimar and Eisenach. The professional chorus, as well as other D.C.-area Bach enthusiasts travelling with them, will serve as cultural ambassadors.

But the Consort has worked hard to serve as cultural ambassadors of Bach's music to the Washington area as well. Conductor J. Reilly Lewis founded the organization in 1977, and since then, the Consort has performed with other Washington-area classical music groups including the National Symphony and the Cathedral Choral Society, among others. The group studies and performs the work of Bach and his 18th-century contemporaries.

The group's final concert series of the 1999-2000 season will take place on Saturday and Sunday, May 20 and 21, 2000. The series, called Mostly Motets, will feature two of Bach's most famous motets: Der geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf, BWV 226, and Komm, Jesu, komm, BWV 229. The first concert will be at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 20, at St. John's Episcopal Church, 6701 Wisconsin Avenue in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and the second concert will be at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 21, at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, on 36th Street, between N & O Streets NW, in Washington, D.C. Tickets are available on the the Bach Consort's website.

One of the activities the Consort does to promote baroque music is offer two free concert series: the Noontime Cantata Concert series at the Church of the Epiphany at 13th and G Streets NW (near the Metro Center Metro station), and the Rush Hour Concert Series at St. John's Church in Lafayette Square opposite the White House (near the McPherson Square Metro station).

The Noontime Cantata series is held on the first Tuesday of each month from October through June. Performances begin at 12:10 p.m. and last approximately 50 minutes. Upcoming concerts include May 2, 2000, when the Consort's chamber chorus will perform Cantata, BWV 145, "Ich lebe, mein Herze, zu deinem Ergötzen," and June 6, 2000, when the chorus will perform Cantata, BWV 68, "Also hat Gott die Welt geliebt."

The Rush Hour Concert series is held on the last Tuesday of each month from October to May. The final concert of this year's series will feature Emlyn Ngai and Peter Watchorn on violin and harpsichord on May 30, 2000. The series features baroque chamber music by regional musicians.

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