Concert performance in Macky Auditorium will not be ‘historically informed’

By Peter Alexander Nov. 8 at 12:00 noon

Photo by Glenn Ross

Conductor Zachary Carrettin and the Boulder Bach Festival return to one of J.S. Bach’s masterworks of their repertoire on Sunday (Nov. 11), the Mass in B minor. But if you heard it the last time they performed the same work, in 2015, you should know this time will be different.

Then it was performed in intimate settings in Boulder and Denver; now it will be performed in Macky Auditorium. Then it was performed by a small chorus and orchestra; now the numbers will be greater. Then there were period instruments; now there are not. Then the soloists were early-music specialists; now they include operatic voices.

In fact, this will be very much a “modern” performance, with no self-consciously historical performance practices. Doing a deliberately non-historical performance seems unusual for an organization devoted to early music, but that decision was influenced both by the large concert hall where it will be presented and by Carrettin’s own philosophy.

“I firmly believe that the acoustic environment, the ensemble size, and the approach that we take with phrasing and tone production and balance should change from concert to concert,” he says.

Read more in Boulder Weekly

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Dance of Life: Mass in B Minor
Johann Sebastian Bach

Boulder Bach Festival Chorus and Orchestra, Zachary Carrettin, conductor
With Jennifer Bird-Arvidsson, soprano; Abigail Nims, mezzo-soprano; Peter Scott Drackly, tenor; and Ashraf Sewailam, bass-baritone

Veterans’ Day and 100^th Remembrance Day
2 p.m. Sunday Nov. 11
Macky Auditorium

Tickets from Macky Auditorium