American Bach Soloists' 2014 Festival & Academia, July 11-20, is exploring "Bach's Inspirations," along with some of Bach's major masterpieces. ABS Music Director Jeffrey Thomas will lead performances of works by composers who influenced and inspired the young Bach.
In “Bach’s Inspiration Parts I & II” on July 11 and 12, compositions by Dieterich Buxtehude, Alessandro Marcello, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, Georg Melchior Hoffmann, and others, including Bach’s uncle Johann Christoph, will be performed alongside Bach's uses of these works - Marcello's Oboe Concerto became Bach's Harpsichord Concerto; he adapted Pergolesi's Stabat Mater in "Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden."
The second half of the July 12 concert goes "pure Bach," with the Second Brandenburg Concerto (John Thiessen, trumpet) and the secular cantata Amore traditore, with William Sharp, baritone, and Corey Jamason, harpsichord.
For other festival and Academia events, see the ABS website.