Join in singing Handel’s uplifting melodies with fellow music-lovers and soloists. This joyous CU tradition will set the tone for a festive holiday season. Bring your own music score or borrow one at the door. All singing abilities are welcome — listeners, too!

Choruses We'll Sing

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
And he shall purify the sons of Levi
O thou that tellest good tidings of Zion
For unto us a child is born
Glory to God
His yoke is easy
Hallelujah!

Practice Aids

No experience is required! But if you'd like to practice, here are a few links
to help:

• Printed score of the choruses we’ll be singing, Schirmer edition

• Keyboard playing each voice part on Cyberbass

• Sung versions of each voice part (search for “Messiah”, plus your voice part) on Chord Perfect

Soloists:

• Nini Marchese, soprano

• Kathy Kew Lee, alto

• Macauley Allen, tenor

• Nathan Waterson, bass

Freewill donation accepted in advance or at the door

Feel the fiery mood of Handel’s Dixit Dominus, with strings and soloists. Faced with the church’s ban on opera, young Handel smartly pivoted, putting the same passion into sacred works like this one. Next, listen for echoes of the convent in a double-choir version by Benedictine nun Chiara Margarita Cozzolani, who also fought efforts by the church to limit her talents. 

Read the complete program notes here.

The performance will also be live-streamed here!

Donations in support of this option for home viewing are appreciated:
baroqueartists.org/donate

Soloists:

Handel:

• Elena Negruta and Ingrid Kammin, sopranos

• Aubrey Hawkinson, alto

• Nate Widelitz, tenor

• Jack Bertrand, bass

Cozzolani:

• Elena Negruta and Ingrid Kammin, sopranos

• Aubrey Hawkinson and Emma Lloyd, altos

• David Zych and Nate Widelitz, tenors

• Jack Bertrand and Nathan Waterson, bass

Tickets can be purchased below or at the door. Doors open 30 minutes early.
Come as you are; our concerts are casual!

General admission: $10/students, $20/adults.

Johannes Brahms’ German Requiem is a beloved treasure for singers everywhere. Join BACH for a sing-along with piano featuring soloists Dr. Ollie Watts Davis and Dr. Ricardo Herrera! Sheet music will be available for those who do not bring their own score.

Tickets will be available at the door for $5 (cash or check)

Grace Lutheran Church
313 S. Prospect Avenue
Champaign, IL 61820

Join us in the beautiful Monarch Events Center in Monticello for a relaxed performance with table seating and refreshments.

BACH presents part songs from the Romantic period. Stylistically connected to Lieder, madrigals, and folk music, these intimate pieces speak of love, loss, and nature. Small groups will perform 19th– and 20th-century part songs by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Fanny Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, and other composers.

Tickets will be available at the door (cash or check, please):
$20/adults, $10/students, $5/age 10 and under

or you may purchase tickets in advance through Eventbrite

Choral Concert featuring the Parkland College Chamber Singers, the BACH Choir, and Centennial and Heritage High School Choirs.

The Parkland Chamber Singers, directed by Dr. Frank Gallo, will perform “I Love You/What A Wonderful World” arranged by Craig Hella Johnson, “Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da" Words and Music by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, arranged Bill Ives , “The Time They Are A Changin’” Words and Music by Bob Dylan, arranged Adam Podd, and “Let My Love Be Heard” by Jake Runestad

The BACH Choir, conducted by Dr. Sarah Riskind, will perform “I Love My Love” a Cornish folk song, arranged by Gustav Holst, “Auf dem See” by Felix Mendelssohn, “Summer is Gone” by Samuel Coleridge Taylor, “Come Unto These Yellow Sands” by Amy Beach, and “O schöne Nacht” by Johannes Brahms

The Heritage Concert Choir, conducted by Justin Lee, will perform “Yonder Come Day” arranged by Adam & Matt Podd, “God Be With You 'til We Meet Again” by Kyle Pedersen, and “Sisi Kushangilia” arranged by Victor Johnson.

The Centennial Choir, directed by Stefanie Eustice, will perform “O Love” by Elaine Hagenberg, “Daemon Irrepit Callidus” by Gyorgy Orban, and “Carry the Light” by Andy Beck

All choir groups will conclude the concert with “Baba Yetu” from Sid Meier’s Civilzation IV, music by Christopher Tin, Swahili Adaptation of “The Lord’s Prayer” by Chris Kiagiri.

BACH is pleased to bring to central Illinois a program of rarely performed Jewish Baroque music with chamber ensemble. Commissioned by the Portuguese Jewish community of Amsterdam, Hebrew works such as Cristiano Giuseppe Lidarti’s Ester and Abraham Caceres’ Hishqi Hizqi give modern audiences a glimpse of the rich 17th- and 18th-century musical life which was influenced by Christian compositional trends. From other parts of Europe, works by Salamone Rossi and Louis Saladin will shed further light on the expansive tapestry of Baroque Jewish music.

Doors open at 7pm.

Tickets available now!

Special Thanks to Sinai Temple for their support of the event.

Written nearly 300 years ago, performances of Handel's Messiah remain a tradition to ring in the Christmas season for choruses and their communities worldwide. All are welcome to join the BACH choir in singing the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah with guest soloists.

Sheet music will be available for those who do not bring their own score.

There is no admission charge. Donations will be accepted at the door and online.

The centerpiece of this program is J. S. Bach’s stunning Cantata BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (“God’s time is the best of all times”), which is distinguished by a more intimate and older sound than many of his other cantatas. The BACH choir will then expand on themes of faith and afterlife with music by William Byrd, Sulpitia Cesis, Heinrich Schütz, Vicente Lusitano, and others.

Doors open at 7PM

Tickets available now!

Margaret Bonds, Harry T. Burleigh, and Lili Boulanger may not be household names in the manner of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, but these late 19th-century to mid 20th-century composers are only three of many remarkable ones whose contributions have been undervalued due to their gender and race.

The BACH Choir will perform Margaret Bonds' Credo with the original piano accompaniment, featuring Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, soprano and Dr. Philip W. Phillips, bass on Bonds' stunning setting of W. E. B. Du Bois' groundbreaking manifesto. The program also includes the Five Songs of Laurence Hope by Harry T. Burleigh, arranged for choir by Marques L. A. Garrett, and the Hymne au Soleil by Lili Boulanger.

Doors open at 7PM

Tickets available now!

And hear University of Illinois alumna Dr. Allegra Martin speak about Margaret Bonds’ Credo here and here!

Margaret Bonds, Harry T. Burleigh, and Lili Boulanger may not be household names in the manner of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, but these late 19th-century to mid 20th-century composers are only three of many remarkable ones whose contributions have been undervalued due to their gender and race.

The BACH Choir will perform Margaret Bonds' Credo with the original piano accompaniment, featuring Dr. Ollie Watts Davis, soprano and Dr. Philip W. Phillips, bass on Bonds' stunning setting of W. E. B. Du Bois' groundbreaking manifesto. The program also includes the Five Songs of Laurence Hope by Harry T. Burleigh, arranged for choir by Marques L. A. Garrett, and the Hymne au Soleil by Lili Boulanger.

Doors open at 7PM

Tickets available now!

And hear University of Illinois alumna Dr. Allegra Martin speak about Margaret Bonds’ Credo here and here!

Alongside the winning YBAC soloist performances, the BACH Choir will perform Francesco Durante’s Magnificat in B-Flat Major (often attributed to Pergolesi) and give the Midwest premiere of Music Director Sarah Riskind’s Oz Cantata. This four-movement work highlights themes of identity and transformation with texts from several of L. Frank Baum’s classic Oz books.

Tickets available now at this link!

All are welcome to join the BACH Choir in singing the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah with guest soloists. Sheet music will be available for those who do not bring their own scores.

The BACH Choir returns with strings and soloists to share Buxtehude’s stunning Membra Jesu Nostri, a Passion-meditation from 1680 composed of seven individual cantatas. Caroline Shaw’s To the Hands was a 2016 response to the third, Ad manus, expanding the focus from Christ’s suffering to the hardships of all who seek refuge.

Click here for tickets.

The Bach and Beethoven Experience (BBE) explores the intersection between folk and Baroque! A Gaelic Summer is a celebration of the fiddle tune and drinking song traditions that come from The Isles: Scottish fiddle tunes, Irish drinking songs, British earworms, and BBE mad-libs improv based on Welsh penillion singing. Workshops will also be offered to the public; visit baroqueartists.org for more details.

A $5-$10 donation is suggested - We’ll pass the hat!

Accompanied by violins and basso continuo, the BACH choir will present Baroque works composed by Italian convent musicians.

About this event

Despite frequent opposition from church authorities, Italian nuns maintained a rich musical life behind convent walls during the Baroque era. BACH will present sacred music by Isabella Leonarda, Maria Xaveria Peruchona, and others, along with madrigals by Vittoria Aleotti and Maddalena Casulana.

Please note masks are required.

BACH is committed to the health and safety of our community. The BACH choir is up-to-date on COVID vaccines and sings fully masked. We ask, where possible, that audience members also be vaccinated or have a negative test before attending the concert.

Join the BACH choir and the annual winners of our annual high school student-artist competition for a joint concert! This performance will feature works by Latin-American composers such as Manuel de Zumaya and Emerico Lobo de Mesquita. Tickets are available now at this link! BACH member and Eureka College professor Dr. Adriana Martinez will be giving a pre-concert lecture at 6:30 pm titled A Brief Introduction to Latin American Classical Music.

This presentation will place our concert repertoire into context with a brief historical introduction to the development of Western art music in the Americas, from the sacred music of colonial cathedrals to the influence of folk and popular music on the works of 20th-century composers. This often neglected repertoire offers a rich and satisfying musical experience for musicians and audiences alike. This event is free with concert entry.

Born in Mexico City, Mexico, Adriana Martínez holds a PhD in Musicology from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester. Her research and teaching focuses on the role that music—folk, popular, and classical—plays in the formation of national identity in Latin America and the United States. A versatile singer and scholar, Dr. Martínez also maintains an active singing career, and first joined BACH in 2018. She is Assistant Professor of Music at Eureka College in Eureka, IL, where she teaches music history, music theory, and voice.

The BACH choir is “bach” with J.S. Bach’s Cantata 140, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (Sleepers wake, the voice is calling us). The choir will pair this classic with a selection of Jewish and Christian settings of Song of Songs, expanding on the sacred love songs woven throughout the cantata.

We’re excited to see you for our 7:30 pm performance. Doors will open at 7:00 pm. Masks are required. Tickets can be purchased in advance through Eventbrite.

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

Prominent New York City-based soprano, Molly Netter, a CU native, returns home to present an all-Baroque program with Charlotte Mattax Moersch. With Netter’s “clear, beautiful tone and vivacious personality” (NYTimes), we hope you enjoy this highly anticipated virtual homecoming concert by some of our own.

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Professor of Harpsichord & Musicology at the University of Illinois, has performed at major venues in the United States and Europe, including London’s Royal Albert Hall, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, and Oxford’s historic Sheldonian Theatre. As a guest artist, she has been heard at international music festivals, including the Associazione Musicale Romana, Tage alter musik Regensburg, and Bethlehem Bach. She has recorded the complete solo harpsichord pieces of Noblet, Février, D’Anglebert, A-L Couperin, and the sonatas of WF Bach. Latest CDs include The Goldberg Variations and The Bach Legacy; her current set of harpsichord videos, The Vernissage Project, can be viewed online.

A versatile and joyous musician, Canadian-American soprano Molly Netter enlivens both old and new music. Recent season highlights have included the US and Japanese premieres of a new solo work by David Lang conducted by Joe Hisaishi at Carnegie Hall, as well as solo engagements with the Chicago Symphony, GRAMMY Award-winning Boston Early Music Festival, Apollo’s Fire Baroque Orchestra, the New World Symphony, Contemporaneous Ensemble, New York Baroque Incorporated, ACRONYM ensemble, Juilliard415 at Lincoln Center, Musica Angelica Baroque Orchestra, BOP Opera in Montreal, Heartbeat Opera, the Staunton Music Festival, Trinity Baroque Orchestra and NOVUS NY contemporary orchestra .

Molly performs as a soloist and full-time member of the Choir at Trinity Wall Street and appears regularly with TENET Vocal Artists, Variant 6, Clarion Music Society, the Yale Choral Artists, Seraphic Fire, and The Thirteen. Notable chamber performance highlights include inaugural casts of Pulitzer-winning operas Angel’s Bone (Du Yun, 2015) and PRISM (Ellen Reid, 2017).

In addition to her work as a solo and chamber performer, Molly is also an active curator, educator and advocate of new music, regularly commissioning new work by living composers. In Spring 2018, she was a featured curator/performer on Trinity Wall Street’s acclaimed “Time’s Arrow Festival,” programming an eclectic evening of Barbara Strozzi paired with newly commissioned contemporary works. Frequent collaborators include David Lang, Doug Balliett, Amy Beth Kirsten, Alyssa Weinberg, Jessica Meyer, Molly Joyce, and Gemma Peacocke. She is also on faculty for the 2020 Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute.

Molly holds a BM in composition and contemporary voice from Oberlin Conservatory and an MM in early music voice and oratorio from the Yale Institute of Sacred Music where she studied with James Taylor. Between degrees, she taught English in Kyoto, Japan.

Please visit our Facebook page for more information: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

A Patient Enduring: These words from one of tonight's selections describe the condition of all of us who cherish live musical performance. Grateful to offer a simulacrum, tonight's performers emerge from isolation to share Medieval conductus and ballade, English lute song, and duets from the early Italian Baroque.

Please click here for program notes for tonight’s highly anticipated program.

Since first arriving at UIUC in 1983, Kristina Boerger has (so far) spent 19 years (half of her adult life!) living in Urbana-Champaign, where she earned three music degrees, co-parented three beautiful persons, agitated successfully for a University policy against heterosexist discrimination, founded and directed to national recognition AMASONG: Champaign-Urbana’s Premier Lesbian/Feminist Chorus, served as Visiting Interim Director of Choral Activities at the UIUC School of Music, and loved many a community member. To see all she has done with her other 19 years of adulthood, please visit www.kristinaboerger.com. Meanwhile, she is grateful for her hometown’s invitation to take her brutally pandemic-silenced professional life off mute for this occasion. This concert reunites her with colleagues from her previous incarnations as a chamber singer in the concert life of New York City and as a conductor with the Madison Early Music Festival. Boerger currently resides in Minneapolis, where she is the John N. Schwartz Professor of Choral Leadership at Augsburg University.

Soprano Sarah Brailey has been hailed by The New York Times for her “exquisitely phrased” singing and by Opera UK for “a sound of remarkable purity.” Recent highlights include Handel’s Messiah with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, performing John Zorn’s Madrigals in front of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum, and The Soul in the world premiere recording of Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Prison, for which she has received a 2021 GRAMMY Nomination for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album. Co-founder of the Just Bach concert series in Madison, Wisconsin, Sarah is also the Artistic Director of the Handel Aria Competition, and co-host of the early music program Musica Antiqua on WORT 89.9FM. Sarah is a member of Beyond Artists, a coalition of artists that donates a percentage of their concert fee to organizations they care about. Sarah supports NRDC, Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, and the Animal Welfare Institute. Learn more at www.sarahbrailey.com.

Brandon Acker is a classical guitarist and specialist on early plucked instruments such as the lute, baroque guitar and theorbo.  His latest passion has been to run his successful Youtube channel which now has over 260,000 subscribers and 14 million views.  His channel provides educational content about early plucked instruments as well as guitar tips and artistic performance videos. His interest in education has led him to found a new online music school with his wife called Arpeggiato which offers lessons in “All things that go pluck.”  In the few months since it opened in 2020, the school has already taught over 500 lessons to students around the world and in countries like Saudi Arabia, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany, the UK, Australia and more. Brandon’s performance career has varied from starting out playing electric guitar in metal bands to his current main focus researching and performing on early plucked instruments from the Renaissance and Baroque periods.  He has toured extensively through England, Canada, Scotland and Wales, and performed with notable groups such as the Leipzig Baroque Orchestra, Piffaro, the Joffrey Ballet, the Chicago Philharmonic, the Newberry Consort, Haymarket Opera Company, Music of the Baroque, Third Coast Baroque, Opera Lafayette and Bella Voce.

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

Join us on our Facebook page for an evening showcasing the talented winners of our annual high school student-artists competition. Talented student-artist winners will bring fresh interpretations of Baroque classics.

www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually this fall to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually this fall to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate

BACH believes, in this time of social distancing, that music is more important than ever. We are excited to present a very different 2020-2021 season, but one that still allows us to come together virtually this fall to enjoy wonderful music with archival performances of some of BACH's greatest concerts.

Our archival concerts will air on Sunday evenings at 7:30 pm via our facebook page: www.facebook.com/baroqueartistscu

The archival programs are free, although BACH would appreciate a $5 suggested donation. Donations may be made at www.baroqueartists.org/donate