Executive Director calls the annual festival “an enhancement of the cultural fabric of our community.”

The event gives local musicians an opportunity to share their talents in their own hometown, said , artistic director and conductor.

Nafgizer, who founded the festival, said he and fellow musicians are grateful to be able to immerse themselves in their passion.

`The payoff [will come] when we start rehearsing next week,” he said, “and you realize that, for 10 days straight, you have no time, no energy to do anything but what you most love doing, which is making music.”

For Adams, who is also a flautist, performing alongside outstanding musicians and meeting a variety of talented personnel makes organizing an event of this magnitude worthwhile.

To her, the festival brings a sense of imagination to the Valley; “an opportunity to feed the souls of the residents,” she said.

Premiere Performance

According to Adams, the festival reaches “way beyond Bach,” incorporating works from various eras, composers and styles. “The repertoire is diverse and exciting,” she said. View the week-long schedule of concerts.

After 20 years, the organizers and musicians aren’t resting on their laurels; Nafziger said the challenge to keep programming fresh means no one can claim, “after attending one year, `Oh, I’ve done that.’ ”

The festival’s reputation for excellence means it sets its own bar. “Everybody’s expectations keep going up,” said Nafziger. “So, in order to keep pace with those, it takes increased and different kinds of work.”

Solo Performer Eugene Friesen

This year, the Bach Festival welcomes four-time Grammy award winning artist Eugene Friesen.

He will present two solo performances: the family-oriented “CelloMan” show at noon on June 16 at Asbury United Methodist Church, and the world premiere performance of “Glory” at 7:30 p.m. in ��ݮ����’s Lehman Auditorium.

In choosing prose to set to music, Friesen said poet Jean Janzen’s work rose to the profound gravity and emotional qualities of Bach.

The festival gives Friesen, who teaches at the Berklee College of Music, a chance to connect with his classical roots.

“The thing that really runs deepest in my heart is the music from my childhood … sacred and classical music,” he said.

But, with “CelloMan,” he hopes to break the sullen stereotypes associated with his instrument: highlighting jazz, bluegrass and swing styles to express its versatility.

“My goal with “CelloMan” is that [listeners] leave feeling like they have a friend that plays the cello,” he said.

No one excluded

Tradition endures in the festival’s annual musical forces, including orchestra, chamber choir, chamber and organ music, and a German Leipzig service.

If curious community members are still unsure whether Bach will be their cup of “kaffee,” attending a pay-what-you-will noon recital or open rehearsal means they don’t have to “go Baroque” in the process.

Nafziger said the event seeks to include everyone in the community and that “a summer festival is a good way to put your toe in the water.”

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.emu.edu/bach or call 432-4582.

Courtesy Daily News Record, May 31, 2012

The program will feature organist, Marvin Mills, and American soprano, Marlissa Hudson. The duo will alternate between solo organ works and additional works that combine their talents.

“Their collaboration on this theme, the spiritual connections, seemed to be a logical and interesting concept for our concert,” said Mary Kay Adams, executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

Kenneth J. Nafziger, Bach Festival artistic director and conductor, will provide commentary.

“Because this is the twentieth anniversary of the Bach Festival, we are doing many unique and exciting events in celebration of this milestone,” Adams said.

“The choice of dates was intentional, selected because it is Johann Sebastian Bach’s birthday, March 21, 1685,” Adams said. “Not only will we celebrate the festival’s twentieth anniversary this season, but this concert is in celebration of Bach’s birthday. Both are important to us.”

The 2012 Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival dates are June 10-17.

About the performers

At home both on the operatic and concert stage, American Soprano Marlissa Hudson made her professional debut while a student, performing “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess with the Baltimore Symphony Pops Orchestra. Her other acclaimed role is Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, which she performed with The Summer Opera Theatre Company. Her performances earned glowing reviews in both the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun, which described her as “an endearing Zerbinetta … [who] nailed the pyrotechnic aria, “Grossmachtige Prinzessin,” in bright, sure tones.”

Recently, Hudson completed her debut CD, “Libera,” published through African Musical Arts, Inc. and available through iTunes and Amazon.com. Sarah Bryan Miller of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted that “Hudson sings (them) all in a rich, expressive voice that doesn’t stint on high notes, with clear diction and true feeling.” Mark Hayes, noted classical music composer, commented that “I love how Marlissa has interpreted my arrangements. She sings them like she has lived them…her pitch is impeccable and her voice shows amazing flexibility and control.”

Marvin Mills, a native of Philadelphia, is organist at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Kensington, Maryland. He has been music director of the acclaimed National Spiritual Ensemble, and guest artist with the Ritz Chamber Players, based in Jacksonville, Florida.

Mills has performed for numerous chapters of The American Guild of Organists and been a featured recitalist at several of its national conventions. Presented in recital by the Washington National Cathedral in observance of Black History Month, he was invited back for its 1995 and 2002 Summer Festival Series.

He has performed throughout the United States, including The Academy of Music, Philadelphia; The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and The Barns-Wolf Trap Farm Park in addition to colleges and universities. He has also been a featured artist at the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival as keyboard artist (harpsichord/piano/organ), chamber musician and choral conductor – preparing the Festival Chorus for major works such as: Haydn’s Creation, �Ѵdz�������’s Requiem, �����ٳ�DZ����’s Symphony No. 9, Handel’s Samson and Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem and many Bach cantatas.

Willis will hold a lecture and workshop from 2 – 4 p.m., Saturday with masterclass, high school and college students. Following the workshop, attendees will have the opportunity to play the fortepiano, a precursor to the modern grand piano. Admission is free for all students, EMU faculty and staff and Harrisonburg Music Teacher’s Association members. All others are $15.

At 7:30 p.m., Saturday, the EMU faculty artists series will present Willis an in evening concert in Martin Chapel. Willis will play a five-octave fortepiano in the Viennese tradition.  Made in Philadelphia in 1986 by Vincent Dulin, it is a replica of a fortepiano made in Vienna circa 1790 by Anton Walter.

On a similar Walter fortepiano, Mozart premiered his greatest concertos in Vienna between 1784 and 1786. This will provide a unique opportunity to hear the music of Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn on an early piano and to learn why this type of instrument was suited to the music.

Admission is free. Donations are encouraged to support the EMU music scholarship fund.

Noted for his mastery of early keyboard instruments, Willis has performed across the United States and abroad on pianos of every period. His recording of �����ٳ�DZ����’s Hammerklavier Sonata appears on Claves label. It is part of the first Beethoven sonata cycle on period instruments. Other recordings by Willis of Schubert Lieder and Rossini are available on Vox, Newport Classics and Albany records.

Willis is director of the University of North Carolina Greensboro focus on piano literature and received a DMA from Cornell University. He has performed with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, the Mozart Society of Philadelphia and the Apollo Ensemble.

For more information on the workshop or concert call 540-432-4226.

Two classical giants will meet on the Lehman Auditorium stage at ��ݮ����, not to compete against but to complement each other at the 19th annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival, June 12-19, 2011.

The glorious works of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)) will fill the air throughout the week under the baton of Dr. Kenneth Nafziger, artistic director and conductor.

The festival will open 3 p.m. Sunday, June 12 with four concertos – Bach’s “Concerto for Oboe, Violin and Strings in C Minor,” “Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in C Major” by Haydn, “Sinfonia Concertante, K. 297” by Mozart, and Concerto No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra in G Major, Op. 58” by Beethoven. All featured soloists are principal players from the festival orchestra except for the Beethoven concerto with Nicolás Pellón, currently on the faculty of the International School of Music in Bethesda, Md.

The second major festival concert, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 17, features Menotti’s “The Telephone,” a funny one-act opera about Ben, Lucy and a telephone that gets in the way of Ben being able to ask Lucy to marry him. Soloists are Sharla Nafziger from New York and Tom Jones from Boston, both featured artists in previous seasons.

Also on the same program will be Bach’s “Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major” and his “Cantata No. 49” along with �Ѵdz�������’s “Symphony No. 29 in A Major, K.201.”

The third festival concert, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 18, features an all-Mozart repertoire with the “Great Mass in C Minor” for chorus, soloists and orchestra and the overture and act 2 from “The Marriage of Figaro” with soloists and orchestra.

Again this year, festival musicians will perform music from all eras and many composers in small ensemble settings at noon Monday through Saturday at Asbury United Methodist Church, 205 S. Main St. Admission is free; donations are encouraged.

A high point of the Bach Festival for many each year is the Leipzig Service 10 a.m. Sunday, June 19, a recreation of an 18th century worship service at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach was cantor and composed a cantata for each week’s service.

Margaret Foth, former radio program speaker, is homilist for the Leipzig service. The orchestra and choir will perform Bach’s “Cantata #172” with soloists Sharla Nafziger, Carrie Stevens, Daniel Buchanan and Tom Jones. Marvin Mills, organist, will play �Ѵdz�������’s “Church Sonata #15″ as part of the service.

As part of the Bach Festival, the faculty for the Virginia Baroque Performance Academy – Arthur Haas,  Martha McGaughey and Linda Quan – will play on period instruments, demonstrating the Baroque style and ornamentation typical at the time of Bach in a recital 5:30 p.m. Monday, June 13, at Asbury United Methodist Church. They will also instruct participants all week on how to play music in the style of that era.

“The mission of the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival is to honor the creative spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach with first-rate performances for an ever widening audience,” said Mary Kay Adams, Bach Festival coordinator and principal flutist in the festival orchestra.

“Each year’s program pairs the music of Bach with music of other composers, eras, or styles, so that no two festivals are ever the same,”  Adams noted. “There will always be new surprises awaiting the audience at each festival concert.”

Advance tickets are available at the EMU Box Office, 540-432-4582 or may be purchased on line at emu.edu/bach/tickets. They will also be available at the door at slightly higher prices.

The complete program for the week is available on line at . For other questions, call 540-432-4652 or email: bach@emu.edu.

Prolific German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) scarcely had time to catch his breath. No sooner did he compose a cantata for the Sunday worship service at the St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig where he was cantor than it was time to work on the next.

And Bach didn’t have access to computer software to help expedite this major undertaking. The melodies flowing from his mind were committed to parchment by hand and had to be duplicated manually for the orchestral and choral participants in the service.

Not only that, but he had to rehearse and conduct soloists, chorus and orchestra and serve as organist. And that was only a small part of his job description as official musician for four churches in the city of Leipzig.

The program theme, “Mostly Bach,” at ��ݮ���� highlighted the richness and diversity of the composer’s massive output, opening Sunday, June 11, with his monumental “Mass in B Minor.” Featured soloists were Sharla Nafziger, soprano; Jennifer Cooper, alto; Kenneth Gayle, tenor; and Thomas Jones, bass; with Marvin Mills, organ continuo and the festival choir and orchestra.

The festival concluded Sunday, June 18, with a “Leipzig Service,” a sermon in music modeled after the liturgical pattern of Bach’s time. Many festival attendees deemed the service, which included a portion of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” as a “highlight” of the weeklong program.

Others might point to another distinct feature of this year’s festival, the return of guest artist Jeremy Wall, a pianist and arranger who has recorded a dozen well-received classical-jazz “World Beat” albums with clarinetist Richard Stoltzman.

Wall, a founding member of the 1980’s jazz group, “Spyro Gyra,” first appeared at the Bach Festival in 2004.

“The universal greatness of Bach’s music allows it to be adapted to other idioms,” Wall said during a rehearsal. “The harmonic syntax of Bach’s music has a common ground with the language of jazz that allows one to take some of his musical structures and adapt them into jazz arrangements.”

But, he added, “the process evolved out of a process of living with Bach’s music.”

During the June 17 evening performance of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio,” audience members were visibly moved as Wall and Pete Spaar, principal bass, and clarinetist Leslie Nicholas took sections of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio” and segued into a series of jazz improvisations that seemlessly combined the musical languages.

“This may be the first time this particular Bach composition has been performed publicly in this way,” said , artistic director and conductor of the week-long homage to Bach and his music.

With 2006 marking the 250th anniversary of another musical genius, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Austrian composer’s music was featured on two of the seven daily noon chamber music programs held at Asbury United Methodist Church in downtown Harrisonburg. His “Symphony No. 35 in D Major” opened the June 16 evening festival program.

A recurring phenomenon of the Bach Festival is the diverse group of singers and players who gather in Lehman Auditorium for brief and intense rehearsal sessions and almost immediately sound like they’ve performed together for years.

Violinist Amy Helmuth Glick of Orrville, Ohio, is among the instrumentalists who returns every year to participate in the festival, having missed just one of the 14 seasons.

“I get to come back and stay with my parents, Ervie and Mary Glick, and to make wonderful music,” Glick said. “I especially enjoy the opportunity to play Bach’s choral works.” Glick, who attended EMU 1990-91, is a free-lance violinist in the Northeast Ohio area and is a member of the Akron Symphony. Ervie Glick was a member of the festival chorus.

Paul E. Groff, a bass in the festival choir, was intrigued by the fusion of Bach’s music with the jazz improvisations of Jeremy Wall and his colleagues. He felt that the inclusion of two different styles “added life to the concerts and helped make Bach feel more contemporary.”

A graphic designer from Harrisonburg and 1990 EMU graduate, Groff relished “the opportunity to sing with top-notch musicians from across the country.”

In opening the Sunday Leipzig service, Dr. Nafziger told the audience that “we’ve spent the week playing and praying Bach,” adding: “Perhaps through this experience Bach is teaching us that at their best praying and playing are one and the same thing.”

“We’re delighted that the community embraces the Bach Festival as ‘our’ music festival,” said Beth K. Aracena, associate professor of music at EMU and Bach program coordinator. “The noon concerts at Asbury United Methodist Church were extremely well-attended, and the strong turnout at Lehman Auditorium demonstrates this community’s commitment to supporting quality performing arts programs,” she added.

Next year’s Bach Festival will be June 10-17, 2007, on the theme, “Bach and Some Admirers.” Renowned pianist Janina Fialkowska will return to the festival with her interpretations of Chopin’s piano concertos.

The 14th annual at ��ݮ���� is going Bach to the basics, with a major focus on the broad repertoire of the prolific German composer.

The program, opens Sunday, June 11 and concludes with the popular Leipzig worship service June 18.

From Bach’s monumental “Mass in B Minor” to guest artist Jeremy Wall’s jazz-infused improvisations on the “Christmas Oratorio,” this serious and playful homage to Johann Sebastian Bach is designed to appeal to a wide audience, according to Kenneth J. Nafziger, artistic director and conductor of the festival.

“This year’s festival calls attention to Bach – to his music the way he wrote it, to his music the way others have heard it and re-written it, and to his music with the addition of Jeremy Wall’s jazz ideas,” Dr. Nafziger said. “These combinations are things Bach tried himself. Our combination of Jeremy Wall and Bach’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’ is a first of its kind event, bringing a modern musical language into a conversational relationship with the language of Bach’s Baroque musical vocabulary,” he added.

The opening concert, at 3 p.m. Sunday, June 11, in Lehman Auditorium. will feature Bach’s “Mass in B. Minor” with Sharla Nafziger, soprano; Jennifer Cooper, alto; Kenneth Gayle, tenor; and Thomas Jones, bass, and the festival chamber choir and orchestra.

Major festival concerts will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 16 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 17 in Lehman Auditorium. Friday’s program includes W.A. Mozart’s “Symphony No. 35 in D Major,” William Walton’s “The Wise Virgins: Suite from the ballet, after J.S. Bach” and shorter Bach pieces excerpted from lengthier compositions.

On Saturday, pianist Jeremy Wall will join with other guest performers in a jazz-infused interpretation of Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio, Parts l, 2 and 3.” A post-concert reception will follow.

Chamber music concerts with instrumentalists and vocalists from the festival will be presented noon-1 p.m. Monday through Saturday, June 12-17, at Asbury United Methodist Church, S. Main St., in Harrisonburg. Admission is free; donations are welcomed.

The festival will conclude with the annual Leipzig service at 10 a.m. June 18 in Lehman Auditorium, often cited by many attendees as the highlight of the week. The program recreates an 18th century worship service at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, German, where Bach was cantor and conducted a cantata for each week’s service.

The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival is sponsored in part by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the Arts Council of the Valley.

Bach Festival tickets are available on-line at or by calling the EMU box office at 540-432-4582.

Of various reasons musicians give for returning each year to the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival on the ��ݮ���� campus, one seems to tug hardest at the heartstrings – a sense of “community.”

Some are drawn because they “thoroughly enjoy the creativity of the programs” assembled by the festival’s artistic director and conductor, Kenneth Nafziger. Dr. Nafziger, professor of music at EMU, is considered a foremost authority on the music of prolific German composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Others cite the “family feel” that flows through the week’s activities.

Philip Stoltzfus has attended every Bach Festival since its inception in 1992 and has played violin in the orchestra for 10 of those 12 years.

Stoltzfus, an assistant professor of religion at St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., said, “This event fosters a sense of community among participants – it makes you want to come back. The material is fresh and challenges both the players and audiences.

“With only a few days to rehearse, the music isn’t beaten to death,” he said. “The intense practices help us develop a certain higher level of musicality, and I enjoy hearing Bach juxtaposed with other composers’ musical styles.”

Stoltzfus especially enjoyed playing in Dvorak’s ‘Symphony No. 8,’ which he said “showcases the strings and brass – it’s what orchestra playing is all about.”

(L. to r.): Paul Whelan, bass; Kenneth Gayle, tenor; Carrie Stevens, mezzo soprano; and Madeline Bender, soprano, were featured soloists for Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” performed June 18 at the 12th annual Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.
Photo by Jim Bishop

This year’s program went “Bach to Basics,” with the timeless, majestic works of the prolific German composer (1685-1750) featured prominently throughout the June 13-20 program.

Nafziger acknowledged that while there are numerous programs worldwide that recognize Bach’s musical genius, the festival each year at EMU is but “another way to show appropriate homage to a composer whose music has become fundamental to the entire world.”

The festival opened June 13 with Bach’s “Concerto for Two Pianos in C Major and Strings,” with Carolyn and Stephen W. Sachs as pianists. The program included Antonin Dvorak’s “Serenade in E Major for String Orchestra,” preludes from Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” and a musical variation on Bach featuring pianist Jeremy Wall, best known as one of the creators of the 1980’s jazz-fusion group, Spyro Gyra.

Two EMU graduates returned to their alma mater to share their artistic gifts as featured soloists at the festival.

Madeline Bender, a 1993 alumna, was soprano soloist for Mozart’s magnificent “Requiem in D Minor,” performed June 18 with the festival choir and orchestra. She also sang Bach’s “Cantata No. 51” as part of a second festival concert and selections by Cole Porter and George Gershwin during a noon program.

Ms. Bender, who went on to graduate from Manhattan School of Music, is a full-time, free-lance musician who performs primarily operatic roles around the world.

“It was a wonderful, almost surreal feeling to come back to EMU, to be surrounded by family and friends while doing this Bach Festival,” she said. “It was also interesting to see it [the festival] through the eyes of my friend Paul (Whelan),” who was bass soloist in Mozart’s “Requiem.”

Bender, who plans to go to Luxembourg for a performance before taking a summer break, hopes to “keep going the direction I’m going” with her music, which may include some additional training to hone her craft.

Joseph Gascho, a 1995 EMU graduate, joined with colleague Elena Tsai to perform works on harpsichord by Bach, Handel and Scarlatti with the festival orchestra.

Gascho went on to earn a degree from the Peabody Conservatory and is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Maryland, where he also teaches basso continuo.

He “happened” to encounter Ken Nafziger en route to a music performance in North Carolina, and Nafziger later invited him to take part in this year’s Bach program.

Gascho, like Bender, said he was “excited” to play in the festival and to reunite with friends on campus.

Noon concerts Monday through Saturday, a popular aspect of the weeklong program, moved this year to the sanctuary of Asbury United Methodist Church in downtown Harrisonburg.

The daily programs of shorter pieces offered by various festival musicians “filled the church sanctuary, some days to overflowing,” according to Beth K. Aracena, acting head of EMU’s music department and festival coordinator. “It was certainly one indicator of enthusiastic response to this year’s program,” she said.

“Attendance greatly increased overall this year,” Dr. Aracena noted, “especially for the June 18 concert which featured the Mozart ‘Requiem.'”

A third festival concert June 19 featured Bach’s “Concerto in C Minor for Two Harpsichords and Strings,” featuring Joe Gascho and Elena Tsai; Bach’s “Concerto in A minor for Violin and Strings” with Joan Griffing of EMU’s music department as soloist; and Anton Dvorak’s soaring, joyful “Symphony No. 8 in G Major.” At the close of that performance, the orchestra received a sustained, standing ovation.

Again this year, a festival high point for many attendees was the Leipzig service, Sunday morning, June 20, a recreation of an 18th century worship service at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Leipzig, Germany, where Bach was cantor and composed a cantata for each week

The Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival is going Bach to basics, with the timeless music of the prolific German composer at the center of the programming.

This year’s festival, June 13-20, will celebrate its twelfth season at EMU. Reviewers have called the annual event “the jewel in Harrisonburg’s crown.”

According to artistic director and conductor Kenneth J. Nafziger, Johann Sebastian Bach has festivals all around the world named in his honor. So why hold one every summer in Harrisonburg?

“I suspect that there are so many Bach festivals because he is recognized as fundamental to the entire world of music since his death in 1750. Doing a festival is one way of paying appropriate homage to his genius,” Dr. Nafziger said.

“Bach, unlike a lot of other famous-name composers, has touched the music of many cultures and many styles. One of my favorite Bach concerto performances was by a bluegrass band. Jazz has been crossing over into Bach for a good while now. There is African Bach, there is Japanese Bach, there is Brazilian Bach – it’s universal.

“For me personally, the music of Bach is the most complete musical expression I know,” Nafziger stated. “All music touches various parts of us – intellect, emotion, spirit, beauty. His works are as complete as anything ever is in the world of music.”

Many music lovers agree with Nafziger. The festival audiences have included people from up and down the East coast and as far away as Oregon. Some have been life-long fans of classical music. Others have never before attended a concert. There are a variety of ages and cultural backgrounds and all feel welcome.

Kenneth J. Nafziger directs the Bach Festival orchestra.

William and Frances Berry drive from Connecticut to EMU each year for the festival. While there are music festivals closer to their home, they feel like the one at EMU offers “something different” that brings them back year after year.

“We are presented with masterful, loving performances of great music made more meaningful because we have come to know and admire the musicians,” the couple said. “There is no fourth wall between audience and performer. We go to the rehearsals. We chat with players and singers. We have followed careers of young musicians as they have returned time and again. We almost feel that we are part of this place.

“We know that Bach was essentially a church musician. We also know that he was a devoted Christian churchman. Nafziger’s interpretations of Bach’s cantatas, motets, masses, passions, etc. have been memorable. We have felt the Eternal Presence in this great body of sacred music each year. This music is our accompaniment on the journey of faith,” the Berrys stated.

The Berrys aren’t the only ones who “come home” to EMU for the festival. This year, EMU alumni Madeline Bender, soprano, and Joseph Gascho, harpsichordist, are two of the featured soloists. Once students devoted to hours of practicing in the music department, they return to campus as accomplished professionals to share their gifts with the community.

Madeline Bender

Ms. Bender earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music Opera Theater. She is a winner of the 1995 Amadeus Fund Grant, the Judith Raskin Memorial Award from the Santa Fe Opera Apprenticeship program, and was a 1996 finalist in the George London Competition, and the 1996 recipient of Manhattan School of Music’s Richard F. Gold Career Award Grant and master of music degree. After an apprenticeship with the Santa Fe Opera, Bender’s career has taken her all over the world to perform major operatic roles.

Joseph Gascho

Gascho’s recent accomplishments include first prize in the Jurow International Harpsichord Competition and a grant award for solo performance by the Maryland State Arts Council. He earned his masters degree from the Peabody Conservatory and is currently pursuing his doctorate at the University of Maryland. He will be performing Bach’s “Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C Minor” with colleague Elena Tsai.

The Bach festival orchestra is made up of professional players from throughout Virginia and around the country who return year after year.

The choir is made up of singers primarily from the local area. Others come from many places in the eastern half of the United States because they enjoy singing, and because the choral experience is a strong one.

Highlights of this year’s festival will include:

* Jeremy Wall, founding member of the jazz fusion group “Spyro Gyra,” who will perform his Worldbeat Bach arrangement in the opening concert on Sunday, June 13.

* Mozart’s “Requiem” will be performed during Festival Concert I on Friday, June 18 with orchestra, choir, Madeline Bender, soprano; Carrie Stevens, alto; Kenneth Gayle, tenor; and Paul Whelan, bass.

* Saturday’s Festival Concert II features two Bach concertos and Dvorak’s “Symphony No. 8 in G Major.”

* The Leipzig Service on Sunday, June 20, is an annual favorite to conclude the week of music. The service, modeled after the ones at St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Bach’s time, will include a Bach cantata (with chorus, orchestra and soloists), hymns, organist Marvin Mills, and a homily given by Christian Early, assistant professor of philosophy and theology at EMU.

* Noon concerts presented throughout the week at Asbury United Methodist Church, downtown Harrisonburg, offer a chance for everyone to sample chamber music presented by the festival musicians.

More information on the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival is available at www.emu.edu/bach. Advance tickets for the concerts are available from the EMU box office, 540-432-4582.