Madison Bach Musicians

media release: March 22–7:15 pm lecture/8 pm concert (also livestream)

March 23–2:45 pm lecture/3:30 pm concert

UW Hamel Music Center-Mead Witter Foundation Hall, 740 University Ave., Madison

Single ticket prices are:

In-person tickets (including on-demand access to the concert recording through October 12)

    $40 — In-person concert attendance purchased in advance; seniors at the door

    $43 — In-person general concert attendance purchased at the door 

    $10 — Student rush in-person attendance purchased at the door, if available

Marc Dupere–CONDUCTOR

Kyle Stegall–EVANGELIST, Matthew Trevino–JESUS

Sarah Brailey & Estelí Gomez–SOPRANOS

Clara Osowski & Chelsea Lyons–MEZZO-SOPRANOS

Fran Laucerica & Dann Coakwell–TENORS

Alan Dunbar & Ryne Cherry–BASS-BARITONES

Double Choir & Double Orchestra

Perhaps no other work in the history of music finds the core of the Good Friday message better than Bach’s St. Matthew Passion (BWV 244). Composed in Leipzig for Easter Week 1727—during the peak of Bach’s creative years in which he composed cycle upon cycle of original church cantatas—the St. Matthew Passion utilizes the complex perspectives afforded by the interactions of two choirs, two orchestras, solo voices, obbligato instruments, a narrator (the evangelist Matthew), as well as portrayals of Jesus, Peter, and Pontius Pilate. Through kaleidoscopic shifts in viewpoint, Bach conveys a single storyline of Jesus’ betrayal, trial, and crucifixion. Like a master movie director, Bach cuts between scenes of action and those of both intimate and large-scale reflection. Each segment is sustained just long enough to allow the narrative to roll forward to its inexorable conclusion. Always, resting beneath the turbulent surface of the action is the all-important central idea: that unconditional love, freely given, can entail ultimate sacrifice. Very near the work’s end, after Jesus’ death on the cross, the unforgettable bass aria Mache dich, mein Herze rein (My heart, make yourself true), tenderly, sweetly, and with seemingly ceaseless curling motions, implores the soul to absorb the meaning of the Passion story. 

Please join us on March 22 & 23 in the acoustically magnificent Hamel Center, with its wonderful sightlines to the stage, for performances of one of Bach’s most enduring masterworks. What a debt we owe to the twenty-year-old Felix Mendelssohn whose instincts were spot-on when, in 1829—in an era that knew almost nothing of Bach’s music—he went all in with a performance of St. Matthew in Berlin. As Mendelssohn must have known, audiences were indeed starving for the kind of spiritual succor the St. Matthew provided. Now, onward we go, exploring a work that magically reveals new mysteries and beauties each time we approach.