Bach Akademie Charlotte Goes to Italy (Musically...)
Take a musical tour with us, as we perform music from the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods, explore the influence Italian compositional style had on Johann Sebastian Bach, and gain insight into Bach's influence on the next generation of composers. The 2024 Charlotte Bach Festival is bookended by two of the most stunning and transformational works ever written—Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Claudio Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610—and there's a lot of great music in between!
All-Festival Passes and Individual Concert Tickets are now on sale.
All-Festival Pass with Premium Seating at selected events: $350 • All-Festival Pass with General Admission seating: $250
All-Festival Pass buyers will receive a free Charlotte Bach Festival tote for each Festival Pass purchased. All-Festival Pass holders and buyers of “Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610” receive free admission to The Monteverdi Experience I and II.
2024 Charlotte Bach Festival Events
All-Festival Passes
June 14–22
Various Locations
Your All-Festival Pass gains you access to all public 2024 Charlotte Bach Festival events. The Premium Seating Pass provides premium seats for both the Opening and Closing Concerts, as well as selected concerts during the week.
Bach@The Brauhaus
Friday, June 14 • 7:00 pm
Location TBA
Enjoy a relaxed, casual atmosphere, as Peter Blanchette—the virtuoso inventor of the 11-string archguitar—delivers a full repertoire of compositions and arrangements spanning the years, with a focus on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons
Saturday, June 15 • 7:30 pm
Sandra Levine Theatre
Queens University of Charlotte
Handel and Haydn Society concertmaster and Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader Aisslinn Nosky leads members of Bach Akademie Charlotte Orchestra in Antonio Vivaldi’s most popular work, the brilliant four violin concertos known as the The Four Seasons.
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Bach’s German Organ Mass (Clavier-Übung III):
Sunday, June 16 • 7:30 pm
Saint Peter’s Episcopal Church
Oberlin College & Conservatory’s Jonathan Moyer performs the Clavier-Übung III, a collection of compositions for organ by Johann Sebastian Bach. It is considered Bach’s most significant work for organ, containing some of his most complex and demanding compositions.
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Lagrime mie:
Songs of Lamentation, Disdain, and Renewal
Monday, June 17 • 7:30 pm
McColl Center
Margaret Carpenter Haigh, soprano and William Simms, theorbo, explore the overlapping musical worlds of Elizabethan lute song and Italian recitative lament—featuring works by Dowland, Lanier, Rossi, and Monteverdi, including Monteverdi’s Voglio di vita uscir, a curiously upbeat lament that offers a shining beam of possibility and light in an otherwise dark world.
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Bach, The Next Chapter
Tuesday, June 18 • 7:30 pm
Kathryn Greenhoot Recital Hall
Queens University of Charlotte
J.S. Bach had an enormous influence on the next generation's composers. Aisslinn Nosky leads members of the Bach Akademie Charlotte Orchestra in this instrumental concert that features the music of his most famous son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and his contemporaries—and reveals how “old Bach’s” influence manifests in their works.
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Vocal Fellows Recital
Wednesday, June 19 • 7:30 pm
Location TBA
Designed for singers on the cusp of professional careers, the Vocal Fellows program provides opportunities for education and career advancement, as the singers benefit from a curriculum including individual coachings, masterclasses, workshops, seminars, and peer-to-peer roundtable discussions—and this performance.
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The Monteverdi Experience I
Thursday, June 20 • 12:00 pm
Location TBA
Claudio Monteverdi was a transitional figure, a firebrand whose music challenged, defied, and stretched the conventional methods and accepted norms of the day— tilting music’s scale of progress. This Experience explores the context of his Vespers and the musical innovations he implemented throughout it.
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The Renaissance Motet
Thursday, June 20 • 7:30 pm
Myers Park Presbyterian Church
Associate Organist at Saint Thomas Church in New York City and Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader Nicolas Haigh conducts the Charlotte Bach Festival Choir in this exploration of the Renaissance motet seen through the works of Claudio Monteverdi’s musical antecedents, counterparts, and influences.
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The Monteverdi Experience II
Friday, June 21 • 12:00 pm
Location TBA
Claudio Monteverdi was a transitional figure, a firebrand whose music challenged, defied, and stretched the conventional methods and accepted norms of the day—clearly tilting music’s scale of progress. This Experience will explore the context of his Vespers and the musical innovations he implemented throughout it.
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The Cello, Ascending: The Rising Virtuosity of the Baroque Cello
Friday, June 21 • 7:30 pm
Trinity Presbyterian Church
In the early to mid 17th century, the bulkiness of the cello saw it relegated almost exclusively to an accompanimental role. Technical innovations made in the 1680s led composers to reconsider the instrument. Principal cellist of the Handel and Haydn Society and Bach Akademie Charlotte Artistic Leader Guy Fishman performs, with members of the Bach Akademie Charlotte Orchestra.
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Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610
Saturday, June 22 • 7:30 pm
Sandra Levine Theatre
Queens University of Charlotte
With an ever-expanding portfolio of compositions and successes, Claudio Monteverdi traveled to Rome in 1610 and successfully gained permission to dedicate his new volume of Vespers music to Pope Paul V. Bach Akademie Charlotte presents this innovative work that revolutionized musical composition.
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