May 8-9 & May 15-17, 2020
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
JOIN US!
Tickets for our 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival will go on sale in August, 2019.
Online orders begin in January, 2020.
2019 – 2020 Ticket Order Form will be posted on August 1, 2019.
Festival performances also take place in North Bethlehem, at Payrow Plaza, the Saal of the Moravian Museum and at Peter Hall on the Priscilla Payne Hurd Campus of Moravian College
If you have any questions about our Festival, please call Renee at the Bach Choir Office. 610-866-4382 x 115
Information about our 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival will be posted in August, 2019 and continue to be updated as additional soloists and repertoire are confirmed. We welcome you to the heart of our season and hope the glorious music offers you joy, comfort, inspiration and peace as only the music of J.S. Bach can.
Voices from the Choir…
Click here for a clip of rehearsal and some thoughts from two Choir members about the 2018 Bethlehem Bach Festival.
Our largest event of the year takes place in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on the campus of Lehigh University and on the historic grounds of the Moravian community. Glorious tradition, spirited performances, festival premieres…music for you. It’s our distinct pleasure to welcome so many of you to Bethlehem every year!
Our 112th Bethlehem Bach Festival in 2019 was – as ever – a time of reunions, annual renewal and contemplation and sharing this exquisite music as a community. Please make your plans – and your reservations! – now and be part of this community in 2020, sharing your passion for Bach and celebrating this uplifting season.
“It’s not only the history of the Festival but the personal history that so many of the performers and members of the audience have with it that gives the weekend a very wonderful and sentimental atmosphere.”
— Karen B., longtime Festival attendee
Festival Soloists
Rosa Lamoreaux, Soprano
Krisztina Szabό, Mezzo Soprano
Benjamin Butterfield, Tenor
William Sharp, Baritone
David Newman, Bass
Dashon Burton, Bass
Festival Artist-in-Residence
Eliot Fisk, Guitarist:
Performances at the 2020 Festival:
Ifor Jones Chamber Music Concert, Saturday May 9 & May 16
Concerto in E Major for Guitar and Orchestra by Luigi Boccherini
Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 5 in C Major, BWV 529 with Charlotte Mattax Moersch
Guitarist Eliot Fisk is known worldwide as a charismatic performer famed for his adventurous and virtuosic repertoire. After nearly 50 years before the public he remains as his mentor Andres Segovia once wrote, “at the top line of our artistic world.” In the 2017-18 season Fisk performed his transcriptions of all six Bach solo cello Suites.
He has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Rochester Symphony, Orchestra of St. Lukes, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Pro Arte Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) and many others. He returns regularly to major concert series such as Stanford Lively Arts, Spivey Hall (Atlanta), Duke University Performances, Newman Center for the Performing Arts in Denver; Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the 92nd Street Y in NYC, Da Camera Society of Houston, Da Camera Society of Los Angeles, San Francisco Chamber Music; Segovia Series at Pick-Staiger Hall at Northwestern University and many others overseas.
The repertoire of the classical guitar has been transformed through Fisk’s innumerable transcriptions (including works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Granados, Albeniz and many others). Eliot Fisk was the last direct pupil of Andres Segovia and also studied interpretation with the legendary harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University. Directly following his own graduation in 1977, he founded the guitar department at the Yale School of Music.
Eliot Fisk is Professor at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, where he teaches in 5 languages. He is the Founder and Artistic Director of Boston GuitarFest (www.bostonguitarfest.org) an annual cross-disciplinary event co-sponsored by the New England Conservatory and Northeastern University. In 2017 he created and served as Artistic Director of the first ever and immensely successful Salzburg Guitar Fest at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg.
First Weekend (May 8 & 9, 2020)
We hope you’ll join us for the opening weekend of our 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival! We look forward to sharing this glorious music with you in 2020!
Second Weekend (May 15 & 16, 2020)
Our 113th Bethlehem Bach Festival continues — join us for the second weekend of music and friendship!
