Chicago-Based BACH IN THE CITY Launches From Former Bach Week Festival

The former Bach Week Festival in Evanston, Illinois, which concluded its half-century run in May, has spawned Bach in the City, with an inaugural concert scheduled for 7:30 p.m. March 21, 2025, at St. Vincent De Paul Church in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, its home venue.

Choir director, organist, and composer Richard Webster, who helped launch Bach Week in 1974 and was its music director for the next 50 seasons, will serve in the same capacity with Bach in the City.

"Our entire organization is thrilled that St. Vincent has offered Bach in the City a home in the cultural heart of Lincoln Park, one of Chicago's great destinations for the performing arts," Webster says.

Webster's artistic partner in the new venture is Robert Beatty, St. Vincent De Paul's director of music and community development, who spearheaded the collaboration between the church and the new organization. He has also joined Bach in the City's board.

The March debut concert, described as a pilot project to gauge audience and donor interest, will feature works for chorus and brass ensemble by German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach and Italian Renaissance composer Giovanni Gabrieli. Performing are the Gaudette Brass quintet and the Bach in the City Chorus, comprising veteran choristers from Bach Week and newcomers chosen by audition. The concert date is J. S. Bach's 329th birthday.

"St. Vincent De Paul's splendid acoustics and spacious layout are perfectly suited to Gabrieli's polychoral compositions," Webster says.

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