Friday, November 15, 2024

American Bach: Christmas Holiday Concerts

Jeffrey Thomas leading a performance in Grace Cathedral (from the American Bach Holiday Concerts Web page)

As was announced a little over a month ago, American Bach will present two holiday concerts for the Christmas season. Jeffrey Thomas will lead the American Bach [instrumental] Soloists & Choir. They will be joined by four vocal soloists: soprano Mary Wilson, countertenor Eric Jurenas, tenor Jon Lee Keenan, and baritone Jesse Blumberg. Both concerts will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Grace Cathedral, which is located at the top of Nob Hill at 1100 California Street. The specific dates and selections are as follows:

Thursday, December 12: This program will be divided between Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. It will begin with the first of the six parts of Bach’s BWV 248 Christmas Oratorio, which describes the Birth of Jesus. This will be followed by a Gloria in excelsis Deo setting. Bach wrote many of these, but the BWV 191 cantata seems to have been composed explicitly for Christmas. This will be followed by Part I of Handel’s HWV 56 Messiah oratorio, which is usually known as the “Christmas portion” and is just as usually concluded with the “Hallelujah” chorus at the end of Part II.

Friday, December 13: This will be the one performance of HWV 56 in its entirety.

As of this writing, tickets are readily available for Thursday; but almost all of the seating for Friday has already been sold. The above hyperlinks can be followed to lead to the Tix Web pages for the respective events. Each page has a diagram showing where seats are available.

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