Celebrate the 300th anniversary of the creation of one of Bach’s great masterworks!
The gripping Passions of Johann Sebastian Bach remain unparalleled in their dramatic impact and universally experienced emotional effects. Bach took the genre to new worlds of expression, incorporating new Italianate operatic elements with the Lutheran tradition of sung chorales. The result is a powerful force of rhetoric that tells the Passion story reinforced by personalized illuminations.
This is music that transcends cultural, religious, and theatrical boundaries between performers and audience members, drawing in listeners as historical participants. Maestro Thomas, one of the Baroque music world’s most celebrated Bach specialists, brings his unique and insightful perspectives to the podium in definitive performances that are profoundly beautiful and moving.
“When I heard the American Bach Soloists perform the St. John Passion in Belvedere Friday, the unashamed earnestness of their presentation was a powerful example of how persuasive and even seductive this music can be when under the care of great performers.” — Jonathan Rhodes Lee, San Francisco Classical Voice
Matthew Hill’s performances of Bach's Evangelist roles was praised by The Washington Post for “deliver[ing] the Gospel texts with agile conviction,” and the Washington Classical Review applauded his "clarion high notes placed with unfailing precision."
Conductor Jeffrey Thomas is “unsurpassable as a Bach interpreter”... “Thomas' direction seems just right, capturing the humanity of the music... there is no higher praise for Bach performance” — Fanfare