2024-2025 Season-at-a-Glance
Mark your calendars and don’t miss out on another incredible year of music with The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Keep an eye on our website and social media for more details. Guarantor presale tickets available starting August 21st; General public ticket sales for select concerts starting August 28th!
Please call the Bach Choir Office if you have any questions about purchasing tickets and attending our Festival: 610-866-4382 x 110 or x 115
Bach at Noon | Second Tuesdays 12:10 – 1pm
Central Moravian Church, Historic Downtown Bethlehem, PA
2024: September 10 | October 8 | November 12
2025: January 14 | February 11 | March 11 | April 8
Summer series:
St. John’s Lutheran Church, Allentown
2025: June 10 | July 8 | August 12
Christmas Concerts | Heavenly Christmas
Saturday December 7, 2024 at 4pm | First Presbyterian Church of Allentown
Sunday, December 8, 2024 at 4pm | First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
Greg Funfgeld Family Concert | YOUTH CHOIRS FESTIVAL
Sunday, February 23, 2025 at 3pm | Zoellner Arts Center, Lehigh University
Gala Concert | THOMANERCHOR
Saturday, March 8, 2025 at 4 PM
Central Moravian Church, Bethlehem
Spring Concert |Rachmaninoff Vespers
Sunday, March 30, 2025 at 4pm | First Presbyterian Church of Bethlehem
117th Bethlehem Bach Festival
May 8-11 , 2025
Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA
* In addition to the in-person performance,
we will Live-Stream the Mass in B Minor
on Saturday, May 10, 2025.
Bach at Noon
Initiated in 2005, this free concert series, designed as a community and economic development initiative, educates new audiences about Bach’s music. It includes seven performances at Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem and three summer concerts at St. John’s Lutheran Church in downtown Allentown. Dr. Christopher Jackson introduces each program with an engaging, informal talk. Bach at Noon has been a phenomenal success attracting audiences of all ages totaling more than 8,000 a year. A frequent response from audience members is, “This is such a blessing!”
Bach at Noon concerts are broadcast by WWFM, the Classical Network. This award-winning classical music station is listener supported, and has offered a number of Bach Choir concerts in previous seasons. We’re delighted that they’ll be sharing our joyous Bach at Noon concerts with listeners near and far each month!
Bach at Noon Broadcast Live! – Listen online at WWFM.org or tune in to WWFM on any of the broadcast stations listed on the chart and enjoy!
Christmas Concerts
Celebrate the holiday season with an uplifting concert experience featuring the music of J.S. Bach and Philadelphia composer Kile Smith. Bach’s cantata Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BWV 1, (How Brightly Shines the Morning Star) known as the “Queen of Chorales,” brings together soaring vocals, warm French horns, and a brilliant violin obbligato in a joyful celebration of the Christmas spirit. Smith’s The Consolation of Apollo captures the awe of the Apollo 8 crew’s historic view of Earth from the moon, blending Genesis passages and transcripts of lunar transmissions into an evocative, multimedia choral work.
This year’s concert also honors the recent UNESCO World Heritage recognition of the Moravian Church Settlement with a new carol by Smith set to historical Moravian text as part of the Carol Commission Project. Join the tradition as the audience is invited to sing along with the choir, making this concert a cherished Lehigh Valley Christmas institution.
Family Concerts
Noah’s Flood (Noyes Fludde) masks, created by the students who played our Ark of animals in our 2020 Greg Funfgeld Family Concert.
Initiated in 2000, the annual Greg Funfgeld Family Concerts are imaginative, collaborative, interactive concerts that feature professional and student artists in the fields of music, dance, theater, visual arts, and poetry, performing with the full Bach Choir and Bach Festival Orchestra.
For many parents, the Greg Funfgeld Family Concert offers the perfect opportunity to introduce their children to Bach, classical music and a live performance.
Spring Concerts
Welcoming the spring and celebrating the sacred Easter season with the music of J.S. Bach has been a long been a tradition of The Bach Choir of Bethlehem. Centerpieces of these performances over the years have included Bach’s Jesu, meine Freude and The Passion According to Saint John, along with the works of more contemporary composers including Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten and Morten Lauridsen.
117th 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. The Festival is a glorious tradition treasured by thousands of people from throughout the United States and beyond since the American premiere of Bach’s monumental Mass at the first Bethlehem Bach Festival in 1900. The season’s crown jewel, the 117th Bethlehem Bach Festival, will include cherished traditions and new programs in an expanded four-day format, featuring the Mass in B Minor, Bach at 8, and the new innovative “Outside the Bachs” series.
