Ad
Featured
The 'Passion' returns to the New Mexico Performing Arts Society
The New Mexico Performing Arts Society will perform the “St. John Passion” by J.S. Bach in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
Published
Modified
J.S. Bach’s mammoth “St. John Passion” has not been performed in northern New Mexico for 12 years.
The New Mexico Performing Arts Society will correct that oversight by performing Bach’s classic choral work on Friday, May 10, in Santa Fe and Saturday, May 11, in Albuquerque. Both the New Mexico Bach Chorale and the New Mexico Bach Orchestra will perform the expansive work.
On Sunday, April 28, the society will present the composer’s Cantata BWV 21, “Ich hatte viel Bekümmemis (I had a lot of worries or troubles)” at Albuquerque’s St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church, 4601 Juan Tabo Blvd. NE.
The concert also will feature a sneak preview of excerpts from the “Passion,” said artistic director Franz Vote.
“It was his job as music director to produce a cantata a week. It sort of makes you humble,” Vote added.
Bach composed the cantata in Weimar, possibly in 1713, for use in the Lutheran church service.
An intimate and deeply human account of Christ’s betrayal, suffering and death, Bach’s “Passion According to St. John” sets scripture and poetry in emotionally moving, expressive music.
The society will perform the work with 15 singers and 17 instrumentalists
“We’re actually what I would call a chamber version,” Vote said.
Bach lifted the libretto directly from the book of John, chapters 18 and 19.
Ad
“It’s almost a musical representation of the Gospel,” Vote added.
The Gospel of John presents Christ as the longed for Messiah and Son of God, who comes to earth as a Jew to restore God’s covenant people. Yet the very people who ought to have embraced their Messiah rejected him.
Gregory Gallagher sings the role of the Evangelist. The Albuquerque resident has performed at numerous events as a concert soloist.
Bass-baritone Kenneth Knight is Jesus. Now a resident of both Santa Fe and Fort Worth, Texas, Knight was the founding director of the Canticum Novum chorus and orchestra, and has also directed the Zia Singers and the Santa Fe Men’s Camerata.
Violinist Elizabeth Baker is the concertmaster. She moved to Taos in 2017, following an orchestral career as a member of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra for 10 years, and then 30 years with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
