American Bach Announces 38th Season

Poster design for the coming American Bach season

San Francisco performances of the 2026–2027 season of American Bach will get under way in a little less than a month’s time. Once again, this will be a “movable feast” with three different venues: St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1111 O’Farrell Street, on the southwest corner of Franklin Street, Grace Cathedral, which is located on Nob Hill at 1100 California Street, and Herbst Theatre, which is entered on the ground floor of the Veterans Building of the San Francisco War Memorial at 401 Van Ness Avenue on the southwest corner of McAllister Street. There will be five programs, only three of which will be conducted by Jeffrey Thomas. Specific dates, in chronological order, are as follows:

Sunday, October 11, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 4 p.m.: The first concert will be performed without a conductor. Featured soloists will be cellists Joseph Howe and Gretchen Claassen, and soprano Mary Wilson will perform the opening selection. That will be one of the five settings of Psalm 113 composed by Antonio Vivaldi. (As of this writing, I cannot be more specific!) Two of the selections are listed as “Scarlatti,” without adding the first name of either Domenico or Alessandro! Somewhat more specific is a trio sonata in B-flat major by Antonio Caldara, known as the “Chaconne” trio sonata. There will also be a Sinfonia a cinque in C major by Tomaso Albinoni, most likely taken from his Opus 2 collection 6 Sinfonie & 6 Concerti a cinque. The program will conclude with the fourth concerto da chiesa in Arcangelo Corelli’s Opus 6 collection, composed in the key of D major.

Thursday, December 10, and Friday, December 11, Grace Cathedral, 7:30 p.m.: This will be the annual performances of George Frideric Handel’s HWV 58 oratorio Messiah. Thomas will conduct the American Bach Soloists and the American Bach Choir. There will be four soloists: Hélène Brunet (soprano), Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen (countertenor), Steven Soph (tenor), and Christian Pursell (bass-baritone).

Saturday, December 12, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 7:30 p.m.: Messiah will be followed by a program entitled A Baroque Christmas. Two of the concertos have titles referencing “Il Santissimo Natale,” the first by Vivaldi and the second by Giuseppe Torelli. There will also be two compositions by Michel Corrette from his Symphonie des Noëls, one in A major and the other in D major. Winds will have their say in the “Concerto Pastorale” in F major composed by Johann Christoph Pez. The program will conclude with a “Gloria” setting by Handel (which lacks an HWV number). YuEun Gemma Kim will be the solo violinist, and the vocal performance of the “Gloria” will be sung by Brunet. This will be the second program performed without a conductor.

Thursday, December 31, Herbst Theatre, 4 p.m.: This program has not yet been finalized. However, soprano Nola Richardson and mezzo Sarah Colt will perform arias and duets. As might be expected, Handel will be one of the composers, along with Vivaldi and Johann Adolph Hasse.

Sunday, February 28, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 4 p.m.: Life, Hope, and Joy  will be a rich vocal program. The five vocalists will be sopranos Brunet and Morgan Balfour, countertenor Nicholas Burns, tenor Soph, and bass-baritone David McFerrin. Most of the program will be divided between Johann Sebastian Bach and Dieterich Buxtehude. There will be one selection on the program by Franz Tunder.

Sunday, May 2, St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 4 p.m.: The season will conclude with a program entitled Fantastic Baroque. Soloists will be Bethanne Walker on flute and violinists Tatiana Chulochnikova and Kim. The program will be devoted almost entirely to Johann Sebastian Bach and Vivaldi, beginning with a solo violin account of BWV 565, Bach’s coupling of a toccata and fugue in the key of D minor, originally composed for organ. (According to the Wikipedia Web page for this composition, the music “may have been a transcription of a lost solo violin piece.”) There will also be the familiar pairing of canon and gigue by Johann Pachelbel.