Podcasts about bach society houston

The Bach Society Houston performs a holiday-appropriate work for orchestra and chorus.

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In April 2022, Bach Society Houston premiered a new American English translation of the St. John Passion. On today's episode, we'll hear from the collaborators who brought this innovative project to life over years of workshops and dialogue by phone, zoom, text and email: Madeleine Marshall, translator; Ryan Rogers, scribe; and Rick Erickson, Artistic Director of Bach Society Houston. The April 2022 premiere can be viewed here.  

"Receiving the news that I would need to have vocal cord surgery was really hard. I love teaching and singing. I need my voice for both of those things that are literally my entire life. I'm extremely grateful for my ENT, and her expertise helped me feel comfortable and eased my fears."Aubrey Nelson is active as a music educator, singer, and flutist in the Houston, TX area. She is a high school choir director and AP Music Theory teacher in Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District, and will soon begin her fifth year as a public school music teacher. As a singer, she has performed with Houston-based ensembles Bach Society Houston, Chorus Angelorum, Casulana Women's Choir, and Suono Chamber Choir. Aubrey received her Bachelor's degree in Music Composition from University of South Carolina, where she also studied flute and voice, and her Master of Music in Choral Conducting from Louisiana State University. Outside of music, she loves food, reading, running, and her 2 orange cats Norah and Dandelion!To get in touch with Aubrey, you can find her on Facebook (@aubbbs) or Instagram (@aubsjnels). You can also email her at aubreyjnelson@gmail.com. Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.Podcast music from Podcast.coPhoto in episode artwork by Trace Hudson from Pexels

Bach Society Houston is grateful to the American Bach Society for sponsoring this episode. In our final episode of the season, we hear from Dr. Stephen Rose, Professor of Music at Royal Holloway University of London, about his recent book, Musical Authorship from Schütz to Bach (soon available in paperback). Dr. Rose joins us to discuss how people in early modern Lutheran Germany thought about musical creativity, authorship, and ownership in economic, cultural, theological, and philosophical terms.    

On June 6, 2021, Bach Society Houston will present a concert called “Music in the Americas at the Time of Bach," which can be streamed online. The concert’s theme—“eighteenth-century music” outside the European geographical context and repertoire typically implied by the term—might raise questions for BSH audiences. Our episode today will explore some of those questions with Dr. Glenda Goodman, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book Cultivated By Hand: Amateur Musicians in the Early American Republic (Oxford University Press). Dr. Goodman joins us to discuss how her book—and concerts like the one I just mentioned—can help us consider, and then expand, some of our assumptions, definitions, and labels around European-derived music during Bach's lifetime and in the generation or two following him. Resources mentioned in the show: Image from an 18th-century American music notebook at Dr. Goodman’s website “Notes on Bach” episodes with Dr. Andrew Talle about his book Beyond Bach and the Anna Magdalena notebooks Vast Early America episode of the history podcast “Ben Franklin’s World,” featuring Dr. Karin Wulf and other scholars Dr. Candace Bailey, Unbinding Gentility: Women Making Music in the Nineteenth-Century South (University of Illinois Press)

In this episode, Dr. Bettina Varwig of Cambridge University joins us to discuss a wide range of Bach-related topics, starting with Cantata BWV 131 (Aus der Tiefen rufe ich), which Bach Society Houston will present in a streamed Passiontide concert later this month (March 2021). We also hear about Dr. Varwig's recent research into how Bach’s Leipzig congregants listened to his cantatas in ways that differ from the “attentive listening” model now associated with Western classical music culture. The conversation concludes with a preview of the essay collection Rethinking Bach, which Dr. Varwig is currently editing for Oxford University Press. Read more about Dr. Varwig here. Instrumentation, text and translation(s), and additional resources for BWV 131 can be found here and here.  Stream Bach Society Houston's Passiontide Vespers performance of BWV 131 and other works on March 28, 2021, at their webpage or Facebook page. Audio example used in episode is from an archived Bach Society Houston performance of BWV 131.      

In this month's episode, we hear from noted scholar and harpsichordist Dr. David Schulenberg of Wagner College. He joins us to discuss his new biography of Bach, recently published by Oxford University Press. We'll hear about the process of researching and writing this kind of book--including challenges and surprises--as well as why we need an updated biography of this formidable subject. We also draw on aspects of Dr. Schulenberg's new biography to discuss J.S. Bach's Violin Sonatas and Partitas, which Bach Society Houston will perform in Spring 2021. Listeners will hear about the historical context and notable stylistic features of these six works, aspects of which Dr. Schulenberg helps us hear by playing excerpts of his own harpsichord transcriptions. For more about Dr. Schulenberg, including recordings and scholarship, visit here. For Bach Society Houston's upcoming concerts, including Bach's complete solo violin works which you can stream beginning in late February, visit here.

Earlier in November, Bach Society Houston performed works from the two Anna Magdalena Bach Notebooks; you can watch the concert here. These notebooks, which originated in 1722 and 1725, respectively, were owned by Anna Magdalena Bach, J.S. Bach’s second wife. These two manuscript collections contain keyboard and vocal works of varying levels of complexity, composed by multiple people and entered into the notebooks by different scribes, including Anna Magdalena herself. In our own time, some of the more elementary pieces in the books are still well-known as teaching pieces for piano students. The notebooks are one of the few surviving sources related to Anna Magdalena Bach, who has been the subject of research, conjecture, devotion and fiction across centuries and continents. With us to talk about Anna Magdalena's musical and domestic life, her Notebooks and other sources related to her, and how we know what we think we know about her is Dr. Andrew Talle. Dr. Talle is Associate Professor of Musicology at Northwestern University and a scholar of music and society in eighteenth-century Germany. He is author of the book Beyond Bach: Music and Everyday Life in the Eighteenth Century. Stay tuned at the end of the interview to hear more about his new research into popular music in the Leipzig of Bach's time.

Subscribe to the podcast here! Sean Wang 4:00 - Sean's arduous process and emigration from Taiwan to the U.S. How he won a major competition and left Taiwan to study music abroad.5:39 - How at age 13, Sean took time off from school in order to practice and win the competition.6:10 - How leaving Taiwan was necessary at that time, in order fro Sean to develop as a musician.7:45 - "I always knew that I would be a musician one day. It was always what I wanted to do." Sean's love of music and his true desire to be a musician. How classical music was a kind of "bubble" and an escape for Sean, a place where he could be comfortable. "Going abroad was a realization of a dream."8:52 - Sean remembers how performing expressively was a challenge, partly because of what Sean calls the "cultural pressure" of his upbringing - to be quiet, to listen to adults - and how some of this affected his playing and put him at a disadvantage as he confronted conflicting messages. "I wasn't supposed to express myself."11:10 - The challenges of "assimilation": "Why are you being snobbish? Why are you disrespecting your trio mates?" How a music coach shamed a 14-year-old Sean for being reserved and quiet. How this music coach failed to understand or feel the need to understand Sean's background as well as his limited English at that time. How the burden of assimilation is placed on immigrants to adjust their behaviors, customs, and personhood for the comfort of the dominant culture. "My quietness was misunderstood and taken almost as an act of defiance."15:04 - "In this society, one is assessed by how he/she talks and acts....the initial impression is everything, the first 10-20 seconds can form someone's impression, sometimes permanently." Without knowing this because, as Sean puts it: "in Asian societies, things work slightly differently," Sean recounts his struggles with inadvertently making a "not good first impression" and how for the longest time he wondered, "why don't people like me? Why am I so unpopular among my classmates and teachers?"16:07 - How it was only in his 20's and 30's that Sean began to examine and reflect upon his experiences and how the difference between his Taiwanese culture and American culture was bigger than he wanted to admit, even to himself.17:03 - The implicit bias that Asians experience in white culture. The myth of meritocracy and how that burdens non-whites with the belief that all things are fair and equal in American and therefore, the deficiencies lie not within the system but within the individual who fails to be "good enough."18:50 - Sean and I share our experiences with microaggressions and how we experience them on a nearly daily basis.19:28 - What led Sean to his multi-faceted career as a violinist, scholar, and conductor. How the perception of specialism versus generalist has affected his career.22:22 - How Sean's scholarship in musicology changed his approach to violin playing.25:20 - "The freedom one gains from knowing more." "Knowing more helps me make better decisions and helps me teach."30:04 - Sean's challenges in finding a career path after graduation while also balancing his family's needs, leading him to playing country music in Nashville, teaching at various institutions, joining Ars Lyrica Houston, executive directing Bach Society Houston, and now, conducting and teaching at the Longy School of Music of Bard College.33:50 - Sean talks about times in his career when he became aware of his race. How "Asian musicians are admired for showmanship and not so much musicianship." How people make assumptions about Asian musicians.39:19 - The "bamboo ceiling" that continues to prevent Asian musicians from rising to positions of executive power. "It seems that in order to get to the same place as white colleagues, an Asian has to work almost twice as hard."44:40 - How Sean feels the priorities have changed for current students and graduates of music schools today.47:36 - "At times, it's healthy to not feel all that comfortable."53:22 - East West Music, a non-profit that Sean founded that commissions new music for Western and Eastern instruments.54:40 - Sean's "practical advice" to his younger self, about the importance of having an "artistic identity" and the importance of breaking from tradition.

The Bach Society Houston performs music from their namesake as well as other works for an Advent service.

If you can identify the sound of the harpsichord but know very little about its history and performance practice, this is the episode for you. Join us as Mark Kroll, internationally-known harpsichordist, noted scholar, and Emeritus Professor of Music at Boston University, tells us about a comprehensive new book on the harpsichord, the Cambridge Companion to the Harpsichord. Kroll edited the collection, which includes essays covering various national/geographical harpsichord traditions, key composers for the instrument, and 20th-century harpsichord music. Houston listeners who plan on attending Bach Society Houston's upcoming concert of Bach's Concertos, which includes the harpsichord showpiece Brandenburg No. 5, will be especially interested in this episode. 

Carrie Allen Tipton is a writer, editor, lecturer, and academic with a PhD in Musicology, MM in Piano Performance and BME in Music Education. She also served as the Director of the Lecture Series for the Bach Society Houston and too many prestigious academic accomplishments to mention. She is also the host of the Notes on Bach Podcast. A podcast that shares scholarly information about Bach to the general public.  We talk about how she got the idea to start her podcast. What shows she was influenced by and her love of radio. Carrie also shares the smart way that she created a proposal for the Bach Society of Houston, so they could form a strategic partnership and sponsor the show from the start. Without financial constraints, she was able to put the time in to produce the quality show she wanted to make. They even helped with promotion and creating a professional logo.  Show Notes [03:20] Carrie was doing work for the Bach Society in Houston. She discovered that people enjoyed learning about Bach from scholars, but they had no place to find the information on their own.  [04:19] As a music scholar, Carrie knew that there was a whole world of information about Bach that these enthusiasts weren't being exposed to.  [04:42] Carrie also discovered how the Ben Franklin's World podcast connects people with scholars that write about the colonial period. Carrie thought this was so cool, and she knew that no one in the music world was doing something like this. [05:17] She approached the Bach Society about sponsoring a podcast that would connect Bach fans with scholarly information.  [06:01] She wanted a podcast about musicology. She also wanted the strength of an organization behind it. The Bach society provides funding, helps promote, and even generated a logo for the show.  [08:34] Carrie has had a long standing relationship with radio. Radio allowed her to listen to classical music as a child. [09:41] She always loved the mission of public radio, and she had the voice for it.  [10:20] When Carrie discovered podcasting, she thought it was people taking radio into their own hands. She knew that was something that she wanted to do. [10:42] She then thought it was worth writing a budget proposal for the Bach Society Houston.  [10:57] Carrie writes a lot of articles for the general public about music, culture, history, religion, and the arts. She also does a lot of freelance editing and lecturing.  [11:23] 80% of the work that Carrie does have a public facing component, so podcasting fit in beautifully with that. [13:01] Carrie releases episodes according to the academic calendar or artistic year from August to May.  [15:01] Nonprofits are always looking for new ways to meet a new audience. A podcast was not a big stretch for the Back Society. [16:36] To educate a potential partner, give them a link to a similar show. For Carrie that was Ben Franklin's World.  [17:23] Emphasize how your expertise could be showcased in a podcast and emphasize your background and show communication experience.  [19:12] Carrie shares success defining moments like when the Oxford University Press tweeted out a link to her show. Some others have embedded her podcast on their websites. Seeing her numbers grow also represents success. [23:41] To prepare for her show, Carrie will read the book three months in advance. She has an elaborate note taking process. Most of the books on the show are argument driven. She scrutinizes the argument and the evidence. After spending two or three weeks reading the book, she puts it away. She then pulls out her notes and hashes out an interview outline. She gives the guest the outline two weeks before the show. She also asks for feedback.  [26:23] She needs to improve technology preparation with the guests.  [30:35] Make sure the guest has USB headphones and a quiet room. Don't overwhelm them.  [31:41] Carrie uses Trello for keeping organized with her podcast. [35:19] Carrie learned that ideas and thinking are important from her parents. Her dad said that it's good to be a thinker. [36:15] Carrie reads self-help, mysteries, and everything in between. She's currently reading Virgil Wander.  [37:42] Her radio songs are late 90s country.  [38:47] She likes Dax Shepard's Armchair Expert podcast and the BBC's In Our Time.  [40:31] Takeaways from Darrell: She partnered with Bach Society Houston from day one. Carrie was intentional about finding that partner. She presented a strategic vision. Show how you are a content expert, show communication background, and share similar examples. Links and Resources: Pro Podcast Solutions Carrie Allen Tipton Notes on Bach Podcast Carrie Allen Tipton on Twitter Carrie Allen Tipton on LinkedIn Bach Society of Houston Ben Franklin’s World Virgil Wander Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard In Our Time Podcast

The Bach Society performs a musical telling of the Passion of Jesus.

The Bach Society Houston recreates a Mass from 1817, with music by Bach, Schicht, and Righini.

To kick off Season 3 of "Notes on Bach," Dr. Jeff Sposato joins us to discuss his new book Leipzig After Bach: Church and Concert Life in a German City. Listeners will hear about Leipzig's musical life in the century after Bach's death as well as Sposato’s reconstruction of the 1817 mass at Leipzig’s St. Nicholas Church in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Reformation. Bach Society Houston will perform the reconstruction later this month. Sposato is a Fulbright scholar who has published books and articles on nineteenth-century European music and culture. Sposato is Professor of Musicology and Director of Graduate Studies at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston.

Ars Lyrica and the Bach Society Houston perform an English oratorio by Handel.

Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante talks with Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte, and Chicana poet Ire’ne Lara Silva. We also address the havoc created by Trump's Deportation Force as experienced by activist and artist Karen, whose father was recently detained by Immigration Officials. Mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte created the role of Renata in Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, premiered by Houston Grand Opera in 2010 and revived in 2013. She has toured with this production to Paris, France; Lyric Opera of Chicago; San Diego Opera; Arizona Opera; Fort Worth Opera; and most recently, New York City Opera. She has been active in the circle of contemporary music, giving life to new roles such as Gracie in A Way Home (HGOco world premiere, 2010), Jessie Lydell in A Coffin in Egypt (HGO world premiere, 2014), First responder/Harriet in After the Storm (HGOco world premiere, 2016), Alicia in Some Light Emerges (HGOco world premiere, 2017), as well as chamber pieces. She can be heard in the most recent CD recording of Daniel Catán songs, Encantamiento. An early music enthusiast, Duarte sings often with Ars Lyrica Houston, Merury Houston, the Bach Society Houston, the Festivalensemble in Stuttgart, Germany, and the Festival de Musica Barroca de San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Other opera roles include Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Sarelda in The Inspector, Tituba in The Crucible, Loma Williams in Cold Sassy Tree, and others. Duarte is also an active jazz singer. Ire’ne Lara Silva is the author of furia (poetry, Mouthfeel Press, 2010) and Blood Sugar Canto (Saddle Road Press, January 2016) which were both finalists for the International Latino Book Award, as well as flesh to bone (short stories, Aunt Lute Books, 2013) which won the 2013 Premio Aztlan. She and poet Dan Vera are also the co-editors of Imaniman: Poets Writing in the Anzaldúan Borderlands, (Aunt Lute Books, 2017), a collection of poetry and essays. Ire’ne lara silva is the recipient of a 2017 NALAC Arts Grant, the 2014 Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award, and the 2008 recipient of the Gloria Anzaldua Milagro Award, as well as a Macondo Workshop member and CantoMundo Inaugural Fellow. Board operators: Leti Lopez. Producer: Marlen Treviño. Co-host Lupe Mendez-Librotraficante Lips Mendez. NP Radio airs live Tuesdays 6pm-7pm cst 90.1 FM KPFT Houston, TX. Livestream www.KPFT.org. More podcasts at www.NuestraPalabra.org. Tony Diaz Sundays, Mondays, & Tuesdays & The Other Side Sun 7am "What's Your Point" Fox 26 Houston Mon Noon "The Cultural Accelerator" at www.TonyDiaz.net Tues 6pm NP Lit Radio 90.1 FM KPFT, Houston 24/7 The Other Side TV

The Bach Society Houston presents a concert featuring all of the motets by J.S. Bach.

Interview: Dr. Carrie Allen Tipton is a musicologist who hosts the podcast Notes on Bach, sponsored by the Bach Society Houston. Notes on Bach is a monthly series of interviews with scholars and musicians who work with Baroque music and issues around music like theology. Today, we discuss the benefits of bringing a researcher's mindset to the ministry of church music. Enjoying this podcast episode? Click here to find other Music and the Church episodes, or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Try This At Church: If your church serves alcohol at functions (like a Christmas choir party!), make sure there's something non-alcoholic that's equally festive to drink. In the Field: The Four Weeks of Advent—have recurring themes! Crawford and I discuss what hymns fit which each Sunday's themes, including one that delighted my son in utero. Resources We Mention: This post on inner singing—where you sing along silently when you listen to a song.Way Over in Beulah Lan': Understanding the Performing the Negro Spiritual by André J. ThomasContemporary Worship Music and Everyday Musical Lives by Mark Porter (check out our podcast episode with Mark)Reforming Music: Music and the Religious Reformations of the Sixteenth Century by Chiara Bertoglio All the Advent Music We Mention: Hymns: Canticle of Turning/My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful ShoutComfort, Comfort, Ye My PeopleImmaculate MaryNow the Green Blade RisesO Come, O Come EmmanuelOn Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s CryPeople Look EastSoon and Very SoonTell Out My SoulWachet Auf/Sleepers Wake/Wake, Awake, for Night Is FlyingWhen Jesus Came to Jordan Choir: "And the Glory of the Lord" from G. F. Handel’s MessiahSweet Was the Song by William Mathias Organ: Alfred V. Fedak, "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" from An Advent Christmas SuiteMaurice Duruflé, Prelude, Adagio et Choral varie, sur le theme du Veni creator (Op. 4)Jean Demessieux, "Rorate caeli" from Twelve Choral Preludes on Gregorian Chant Themes

In J.S. Bach's time, Lutherans marked Good Friday--which falls in mid-April this year--with musical settings of the Passion, the story of Jesus's trial and crucifixion drawn from the New Testament gospels. Musical retellings of the Passion are still common in much of the world during Holy Week; as part of this tradition, Bach Society Houston will perform Bach's St. John Passion in April 2017. On this month's episode, Dr. Daniel R. Melamed (click name for bio), Professor of Musicology at Indiana University, joins us to discuss his book Hearing Bach’s Passions (click title to order), focusing especially on St. John. Melamed's book aims to help non-academics better understand the many complicated historical and musical dimensions surrounding the performance and reception of Bach’s Passions. It was recently released by Oxford University Press in an updated paperback edition.