Going on its 28th year, anticipation was high before organizers announced the cancellation of the summer festival due to the pandemic in April. On Sunday, the virtual concerto began featuring music and soloists who would have been heard during the summertime festival.

“It is a fraction of what folks would have seen and heard in person, but we try to keep the rhythm of the week alive by presenting them virtual content each day that we would have had at in-person concerts,” said David McCormick, the festival’s executive director.

Last year’s festival gathered 80 musicians at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř and Asbury United Methodist Church as an homage to renowned composer Johann Sebastian Bach, drawing audience members from across the Atlantic region. This year’s online event is isolated and on a reduced scale of performers but attracting viewers from across the globe.

David Berry has been a pianist for the festival for the past three summers and participated in the intergenerational music event the previous two years. He said news of the festival’s cancellation was gut-wrenching, but he knew McCormick would pull a trick from his sleeve to keep the magic going.

“That’s a part of being a performer or being a musician is to be able to improvise, to be able to be creative and find different ways of doing things, and I think David McCormick is especially good at that, so I knew there would be something,” Berry said.

On Friday, Berry will upload two performances, shot in Lehman Auditorium — one, a 20-minute piano solo, and the second, a duet with baritone David Newman.

“We thought it’d be a good idea from doing it at Lehman Auditorium because that’s where the festival is held, and festival audiences know that space and in order to give some sort of sense of comfort,” Berry said.

Newman has accompanied festival performances in the past and returned this year to assist Berry’s rendition of Franz Schubert’s “Wanderer.” In addition to his baritone vocals, Newman volunteered his  and equipment to ensure the duet can be a successful socially distanced collaboration.

“The technology I’m using is literally old fashion technology. It’s all stuff we’ve been using for years in live sound applications, and I am not an expert on live sound, but I played in a rock band before I ever became a classical singer,” Newman said about his idea to set up real-time physically distant rehearsals and performances.

He said sound travels at approximately one millisecond per foot, so artists are obstructed from synchronized sound through lagging, regardless of internet platform, if there is adequate distance between musicians as necessary to combat contagion. To counteract the latency of traveling sound waves, Newman donated his sound equipment so audio can travel as electromagnetic waves at the speed of light.

“We just used regular microphones connected to a mixer on long tables and what that allows us to do was be physically separated by 70 or 80 feet but still hear each other as we made the sound as if we were right next to each other,” Newman said. “This is just showing there is a way forward even while maintaining physical distancing.”

Due to the surplus in the festival’s budget, scheduled performers are receiving an honorarium valued at a percentage of their original fee.

“Many of them are struggling and lost thousands and thousands of dollars, and applying for unemployment as a freelance musician is very difficult,” McCormick said.

During previous festivals, an empty violin case would sit before the performers to collect tips, and that tradition is continuing online as an illustration of an empty violin case on the festival’s website asks patrons to consider donating this year.

Berry said that in addition to any financial support stemming from this virtual transition, the ability to connect with audiences while apart has been nourishing.

“Hearing some of the responses to the video and the views and engagement around it, that’s been encouraging. Even though you can’t feel the community the same ways you would in a concert … to know that’s not lost, people are still engaged, people are still listening and to the degree they are, the level of response, has been very encouraging and surprising to me,” he said.

Diane Phoenix-Neal has been the principle violist of the festival for 16 years and said news of this year’s cancellation was disappointing since the event is an annual congregation of fellow artists, but the camaraderie remains strong despite physical separation.

“We interact like a family and the festival is a big reunion for the musicians who enjoy rehearsing and performing together,” she said. “I was very happy to do this but with a great deal of emotion and nostalgia for past seasons.”

McCormick said he expects some of the major heartstring-tugging videos will be Saturday’s “Ein deutsches Requiem” recording of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, which will also feature notes from artistic director Ken Nafziger, who traditionally writes segments of notes in the festival’s program booklet to accompany acts.

Organizers are erring on the side of caution and not planning any future events, but McCormick said he hopes the physical ensemble showcases return next June, and the festival will bring some tools adopted during the pandemic to future events.

“I think a lot of arts organizations, including ours, have really seen the power of having an online presence. We’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of views of our videos all over the world, and it’s increased the reach of our festival,” he said. “If we do live performances next summer, some would be livestreamed so folks can continue hearing and seeing what we’re doing.”

Sunday’s closing performances are from organist Marvin Mills, who will perform “Ascend the Mountain: A Walk with Doctor King,” depicting Martin Luther King Jr.’s final speech through the organ, and “Three Spirituals,” accompanied by soprano Marlissa Hudson.

“There’s this nostalgia we can all have for what might’ve been, but we’ll still be able to hear that piece,” McCormick said.

The concert will be Tuesday, Dec. 10, at 7:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel in the EMU Seminary. This popular annual concert is free and open to the public; donations will be gratefully accepted to benefit the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

A reception will follow the concert.

About the artists

David Berry, assistant professor of music at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř, is an active classical pianist whose performances have been featured in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Merkin Hall, the UW World Series at the University of Washington, as well as live broadcasts of WQXR (New York City). Recent concerto engagements have included appearances with the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival Orchestra and the Hudson Symphony Orchestra.

As a performer of new music, he has worked with or premiered works by a number of noted composers, including James Lee III, Jeffery Scott (Imani Winds) and Grammy-award winning composer Jennifer Higdon. David was a featured soloist in the Juilliard School’s Focus Festival, All About Elliott, celebrating the 100th birthday of Elliott Carter, and also featured in piano series’ hosted by author David Dubal at the Kosciusko Foundation and the Cervantes Institute. David was the Grand Prize Winner of the Bradshaw and Buono International Piano Competition, as well as a prizewinner in the Thousand Islands International Piano Competition.

An avid chamber musician, Berry has collaborated with members of many of the nation’s leading orchestras, including the New Jersey, Houston, St. Louis, Dallas, and Seattle symphonies. He has toured and regularly concertized as a resident member of the Jacksonville, Florida based Ritz Chamber Players, The Harlem Chamber Players, and the innovative chamber music theater group, the Core Ensemble. As an arts administrator, David serves as Chair of Chamber Music Programs for the Gateways Music Festival at the Eastman School of Music, a biennial festival which celebrates the contributions of musicians of African descent to classical music, and features over 120 players from major American orchestras and university faculties across the United States.

David received his Bachelor of Music with High Distinction from the Eastman School of Music, and Masters and Doctor of Musical Arts degrees in piano performance from the Juilliard School where he was a recipient of the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship and Susan W. Rose Piano Scholarship.

Conn-Selmer trumpet artist Christine Ennis Carrillo is the Director of Instrumental Music and Chair of the Department of Music at Bridgewater College in Bridgewater, Virginia.  Carillo has performed with a wide variety of ensembles including the New Orchestra of Washington, Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, Madison Brass Quintet, Virginia Brass Consort, Victoria Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, Keith Brion and his New Sousa Band, Audio Inversions Contemporary Music Ensemble, The Oratorio Society of Virginia and the Massanutten Brass Band as well as performances at Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the City Recital Hall Angel Place in Sydney, Australia. 

She holds a Doctor of Musical Arts and Master of Music in Trumpet Performance from The University of Texas at Austin, and dual Bachelor of Music degrees in Music Education and Trumpet Performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

Canadian soprano Susan Gouthro currently resides in Virginia, where she is pursuing a Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance, Pedagogy and Literature at James Madison University with voice professor Kevin McMillan. Prior to beginning her doctorate, she lived in Europe for fifteen years working as a professional opera singer. Gouthro was a permanent member of the solo ensemble at the opera house in Kiel, Germany from 2002 to 2014.  There she performed many of the most important roles in the lyric soprano repertoire. Mozart roles include Pamina in The Magic Flute, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte.  French opera roles include Micaela in Carmen, Marguerite in Faust, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann, and the title role in Manon.  Favorite Italian roles performed include Liu in Turandot, both Mimi and Musetta in La Bohème, as well as Violetta in La Traviata. Her diversity extends to German operetta (Hanna Gawari in The Merry Widow and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus) and the first forays into Wagner repertoire with Eva in Die Meistersinger von NĂĽrnberg. Czech roles which round out this singers’ repertoire are the title roles in The Cunning Little Vixen and Rusalka, as well as Marie in The Bartered Bride. 

In 2015-16 she was celebrated as the opera-diva Carlotta in the musical The Phantom of the Opera at the Metronom Theater in Oberhausen, Germany, singing eight shows a week for one year.  Also an active concert singer, Gouthro regularly sings Oratorio as well as performing song recitals and modern music.  After completing her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Canada, Gouthro moved to Marseille, France where she was chosen to take part in the one-year CNIPAL young artist program.

About the festival

The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival is a week-long summer music festival devoted to promoting an appreciation and understanding of the music of Bach and a featured composer, country, era or people. The festival takes place on the campus of ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Three featured concerts with orchestra, soloists, and choir; six chamber music concerts; a Leipzig Service; and open rehearsals infuse the Valley with unequaled musical richness. Additional offerings include internships, youth programs, Road Scholar (Elderhostel), and the Virginia Baroque Performance Academy.

The Festival Orchestra, with its fine professional musicians from all over the country, produces vibrant performances. Membership in the Festival Choir, a volunteer ensemble, is open to the public and allows vocalists, both amateur and professional, to sing the most celebrated works of the orchestral-choral repertoire. The quality of the performances is first-rate.

The Festival, widely recognized for its artistic excellence, has been named the â€śjewel in Harrisonburg’s crown” by the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

Early Music America’s mission is to develop, strengthen and celebrate early music in North America. Its members include professional and amateur performers, educators, ensembles, presenters, instrument makers and philanthropists, among others.

“It is a great honor to be elected to the Early Music America Board of Directors,” McCormick said. “I have a strong desire to give back to this organization that has provided me with many wonderful opportunities. As a resident of Virginia, I hope to represent budding early music scenes in the Shenandoah Valley, central Virginia and the Carolinas.”

McCormick first became acquainted with EMA as a student member. The organization sponsored his appearance at the Young Performers Festival, part of the Boston Early Music Festival, and later awarded McCormick an educational outreach grant that supported a series of concerts on the music of Thomas Jefferson’s era in Charlottesville schools.

In addition to his Bach Festival involvement, McCormick is also the founding artistic director of Charlottesville-based Early Music Access Project and a co-founder of Alkemie, a medieval ensemble based in New York City. In 2017, he was honored with Shenandoah Conservatory’s Rising Stars Alumni Award.

EMA defines early music as music of the medieval, renaissance, baroque and classical eras (classical being understood as pre-mainstream classical) played on reproduction or historic instruments — though McCormick notes that the genre is also still defining itself: “It’s growing tentacles as we speak, but accurate to say that we strive to stay true to the aesthetics of the musicians of the particular time period.”

This veracity “requires the right hardware, period instruments and vocal techniques, and the right software: performance style, improvisatory skills, understanding of traditions and conventions,” according to EMA.

McCormick is in his fourth year as the festival’s executive director, which among many other events, features a week-long Virginia Baroque Performance Academy. An immersive workshop provides players of all levels with experience in technique and interpretation through masterclasses and coaching sessions.

“It is really a delight to oversee this,” McCormick said, “since it’s exactly an event like this that really shaped my career.”

McCormick earned his bachelor’s degree in music education and a master’s degree in violin performance from Shenandoah University. While there, he was encouraged to explore baroque music by a staff member in the registrar’s office who played baroque basoon. But his career stayed on a more traditional path, despite hearing the artistic promise of a favorite Bach recording performed by a baroque violinist.

McCormick first played baroque violin on a borrowed instrument at the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.

“I literally came home from Oberlin and bought a baroque violin,” he said. “That experience completely changed the trajectory of my career.”

He finished an artist’s diploma at Shenandoah University while traveling to learn from baroque teachers in Washington D.C. and Baltimore, and also earned a master’s degree in medieval Renaissance and Baroque music from Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio.

“They thought it was funny and then tried to mimic the sounds by changing the notes and we would have a little back and forth between the two instruments,” he said.

Honking—Chaplin’s own word choice—is an apt, animal-oriented descriptor for various sounds emitted during the second annual Instrument Petting Zoo held Feb. 1 at the Explore More Discovery Museum in Harrisonburg, though event founder certainly hopes for more sonorous prospects for the young attendees.

A music educator, professional musician and executive director of the , McCormick says the main goal is to “get kids interested in classical music and in playing instruments.”

A classical string trio at the front door introduced melodious possibilities to young minds. Further inside the museum was the menagerie: violins, recorders, trombones and percussion—available to hold, touch, and play—with the help of friendly volunteers.

More than 500 children and parents attended this year’s event, which was partially funded by an Arts Council of the Valley “Advancing the Arts” grant. Volunteers included faculty, staff and student musicians from ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř and James Madison University. Kiwanis Club members also helped out at two instrument-building stations.

Hannah Menefee, a senior music education major currently student-teaching in Harrisonburg City Schools, interacted with enough shy children during the three hours that she came up with a strategy: hand the instrument to the adult.

And then there was the little girl who really did just want to hold the instrument and pet it.

“These outreach events show anyone just how fun and exciting it is to play an instrument,” she said. “They’re an easy and fun way for the community to learn about music education outside of the school setting. Not only does it help the children but also the parents learn and engage with their children’s education.”

Faculty from EMU’s Preparatory Music Program offered information about lessons, offered year around, and Bach Festival concerts, held each summer at EMU. “We made a lot of good connections,” McCormick said.

Getting kids hooked on music early is important, says Chaplin, who grew up in a musical family and eventually, played clarinet at Parry McCluer High School in Buena Vista, Va., in concert, district and area honor bands. At EMU, he sings with the University Choir and plays in three instrumental groups, as well as in a wind trio he formed with friends.

Exploratory events like the instrument petting zoo “allow kids of all ages to come and try real instruments and get an idea of what instrument they would like to learn,” Chaplin said. “It is never too early to start learning how to play.”

The free concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Lehman Auditorium. Donations are welcome for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

The concert program “Love to My Liking” features music of the trouvères of northern France, including songs of public and private adoration, and choreographies based on contemporary sources.

“I’m thrilled to bring Alkemie to EMU this November,” said McCormick. “This will be a unique concert experience. We bring medieval music to life with creative arrangements, dancing, and an emphasis on improvisatory and folk styles of the period. Fans of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival will recognize four of our members as guest artists from the 2018 Festival.”

Founded in the spring of 2013 by five friends with a zeal for medieval music, Alkemie’s mission is to share the life-affirming and alternative perspectives to be experienced in the sounds of centuries past. Alkemie specializes in medieval music for high voices and instruments, with a particular interest in exploring the porous boundaries between the “high” and “low” music of the period.

A June 2018 performance at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival was lauded as “enchanting” and “indicating [the] future health” of the field of early music.

From the beginning, says , SVBF’s conductor, artistic director, and co-founder, the intention has been to make each festival so different from those which preceded it that no one could ever say, “been there, done that.”

“Bach is the constant,” Nafziger says, “but the material around him is always changing.”

This year’s festival will feature, on its opening night, such crowd-pleasing fare as Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto in G major, No. 4; and his Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major (source of the famous “Air on the G String”); as well as, to close the second festival concert on Friday the 16th, the Symphony No. 8 in B minor (“Unfinished”) of Franz Schubert.

Opening the second concert, SVBF concertmaster will team with violist Diane Phoenix-Neal and cellist Beth Vanderborgh on the Sinfonia Concertante in A major of Carl Phillipp Stamitz, a near-contemporary of Bach.

The fourth Brandenburg Concerto, which has been played several times previously at the SVBF, will this year exhibit an early music texture consistent with what Bach’s own musicians may have produced, thanks to the use of recorders in place of the usual flutes.

Recorder players Nancy Garlick and David McGown will be joined by violin soloist , a Baroque specialist and founder of the Charlottesville-based ensemble Three Notch’d Road.

McCormick, who will  appear for the first time on the SVBF stage, is also the festival’s newly appointed executive director. He says SVBF is characterized by a “wonderful sense of community” in which not only the performers share, but also music-lovers from all over the Eastern seaboard and beyond.

“As someone who lives and breathes the music of Bach’s period, I’m thrilled to be part of this festival,” McCormick says.

In keeping with the festival’s “Bach is just the beginning” credo, it will also serve as a platform, the second and third festival concerts, for several recent works by Los Angeles-based composer and violinist Maria Newman.

In addition to a pair of string concerti, Newman, daughter of nine-time Academy Award-winning composer/conductor Alfred Newman, will bring to EMU’s Lehman Auditorium one of the more than one-dozen scores she has written for vintage silent films. At the third festival concert, on Saturday the 17th, the 1914 Mary Pickford feature “Cinderella” will be screened with live accompaniment from the festival orchestra.

An additional highlight on Saturday night will be its excursion into Cuban music. Nafziger, a frequent participant in cultural exchanges with Cuba, will lead the orchestra in La bella cubana, by José Silvestre White, and Volver atras, by SVBF violinist Eleonel Molina.

One of the festival’s other defining characteristics – its eagerness to promote the development of young musicians – will be showcased in a work on the opening-night program, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Concerto for Flute, Harp, and Orchestra in C major. The teenage soloists are Emma Resmini of Fairfax Station, Va., on flute, and harpist Morgan Short, of Roanoke, Va.

Despite their youth, Resmini and Short both have ties to the festival which extend back several summers.

Among the other soloists returning for this year’s SVBF are violist Scott Hosfeld, clarinetist Leslie Nicholas, and bass-baritone Daniel Lichti.

The festival concludes on Sunday, June 18, with a non-sectarian service of worship such as might have been conducted during Bach’s heyday as a church musician in Leipzig, Germany. It will feature the Magnificat in D major – yet another piece brought back from the festival’s first year. In addition to Lichti, soloists include sopranos Veronica Chapman-Smith and Heidi Kurtz, countertenor Joel Ross, and tenor Brian Thorsett. Marvin Mills will be the organist.

The homilist for the Leipzig service will be Isaac Villegas, pastor of Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship in North Carolina.

For more information about the festival, including details on the series of free concerts offered weekdays at noon at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Harrisonburg, go to .

He will continue his journey and passion in that field with a new call as the executive director of the , based at ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

“David clearly brings a tremendous amount of energy to this position,” says Dr. , vice president of the festival’s advisory board. “If his success with [musical group] in Charlottesville is any indication, he will surely bring a fresh and lively vision to the Bach Festival.”

McCormick, a native of nearby Charlottesville, Virginia, says he attended his first Bach Festival concert in Harrisonburg this summer and fell in love.

“From that brief encounter, one concert, I saw this is a festival with a lot of heart,” McCormick says. “It’s a great opportunity to join a festival that embraces what I think is some of the best music out there. I’m pleased to be a part of it.”

There is a “tradition of great Bach festivals around the country,” McCormick says, and he hopes to use that network to build up the Harrisonburg event, “giving it more of a regional or even national reputation.

“I think there’s a real potential in this area to encourage tourists to be part of this festival,” he adds.

McCormick brings a diverse background to the position. He holds a degree in medieval Renaissance and Baroque music from Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio, and three degrees—in music education, violin performance and chamber music—from Shenandoah University.

He also performs medieval music on the vielle (a violin-like stringed instrument) with New York-based and founded the Charlottesville-based baroque music group . His work has been primarily as an educator, teaching violin and viola students in the Charlottesville and Waynesboro areas. He says he plans to bring that educator’s perspective to the festival, as well, helping audiences more deeply understand the music they’re hearing.

McCormick follows , who served as executive director for the past decade. Adams, a flutist, has also played with the festival since its beginning and plans to continue in that role.

Another key member of the festival leadership, artistic director and conductor , will continue in his role. McCormick says that Nafziger’s presence was a factor in his decision to accept the executive director job.

“One of the strong points that brought me here was definitely Ken,” McCormick says. “I’ve seen from afar that his leadership of this festival is unbelievable. He’s the heart and soul of this festival. I worked with him professionally a few years ago, and he’s just such a great musician and a great human. He embodies a lot of the values that are important to me.”

Nafziger, professor of music at EMU, had similarly good things to say about McCormick. “I’m delighted that David has accepted the position of executive director for the Bach Festival. His broad wealth of experience in management and in performance will find a warm welcome within our organization as we prepare for our 25th season and beyond. I look forward to working with him: as a planner, as a dreamer of the future, and as a performer.”

McCormick enters his duties at a particular noteworthy time, as the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2017. The festival will be June 11-18 in Harrisonburg.