Bach Aria Festival and Institute Performances now available on Youtube!

Posted on July 8, 2019 by Gisele Schierhorst

The legendary Bach Aria Festival and Institute was in residence at Stony Brook University every summer from 1981 to 1997. Under the direction of Music Department faculty and flutist Samuel Baron and his wife, musicologist Carol Baron, students and performers from all over the world converged upon the campus to study and give concerts of Bach’s music, to the great delight of the university community. Performances recorded at the Staller Center were then archived and cataloged in the Music Library. These will now be accessible on You Tube. By searching “Bach Aria Festival and Institute,” one can hear performances of Bach’s “Peasant Cantata,” the “Magnificat in D” and several other works.

Those who “subscribe,” to the “Bach Aria & Institute,” channel will receive announcements of future releases. They will include Sheldon Harnick’s English adaptation of one of Bach’s secular cantatas, “The Appeasement of Aeolus,” BWV 205, which was commissioned and staged for the Bach Aria Festival and Institute (Harnick is best known as the librettist for the Broadway production of “Fiddler On The Roof.”) In time, several of Bach’s most brilliant and moving church cantatas will be added to the channel, as well as orchestral suites and concertos, and instrumental pieces for smaller ensembles.

In a departure from Bach’s repertory, the channel will also include Antonio Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons”; the performance will be accompanied by an English translation of the texts Vivaldi used as the basis for his “pictures in music,” in each movement. This will replicate the presentation of Vivaldi’s work at the Bach Aria Festival nearly thirty years ago. For more information see:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIlTPTiOeekMg0lZP-oO_sw Congratulations to Dr. Baron and her team for preserving the legacy of this Festival for new generations of listeners!