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Laser beams with classical music? Mexican baroque? All this and more will be featured in Musica Angelica’s Bach Fest this weekend, April 11-13, at the First Congregational Churches in Los Angeles and Long Beach.
German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) is known and celebrated for his complex musical arrangements, often church-related, with harmonies and counterpoints that convey the emotional depth associated with the Baroque period.
Festivities kick off Friday, April 11, with “Bach to the Future” at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles, 540 S. Commonwealth Ave., featuring resident organist Christoph Bull playing Bach along with a laser light show. (Whoa!)
Gourmet food trucks and a no-host bar in front of the cathedral will provide refreshments beginning at 7 p.m. — which Bull refers to as a “pre-hang” to be in the “right spirits” for the concert — before the show starts at 8:30 p.m.
The festival then moves to Long Beach on Saturday, April 12, with director Martin Haselböck leading the Musica Angelica Orchestra in performing Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach, 241 Cedar Ave.
Saturday’s performance begins at 6 p.m., after a pre-concert reception in the church’s courtyard beginning at 4:30 p.m.
“St. Matthew Passion” tells the story of Jesus’ final days before dying on a cross, featuring both instrumental and vocal elements. Sounds perfect before Easter next week, or just to hear something besides Grand Prix race cars.
The orchestra then moves Bach to the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles to reprise this performance on Sunday, April 13, at 3 p.m., followed by a reception.
Haselböck said that to understand Bach’s music, it helps to think of him as a Baroque composer. According to Haselböck, Bach considered himself like other artists of the period as “a mirror reflecting, in his music, all the proportions, dimensions and special features of a God-created world.”
“The more artistic the musical forms appear, the more elaborate their polyphonic structures can be constructed,” Haselböck said. “Therefore, the better the composer could reflect God’s infinite creation.”
Tickets to Bach Fest’s Friday night and Saturday and Sunday afternoon concerts are available through Musica Angelica at Musicaangelica.org. The festival is sponsored by the Colburn Foundation.
The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles will also offer a free performance of “Bach & the Mexican Baroque” as part of its Palm Sunday services on April 13, beginning at 10:30 a.m., when organist Bull will be Bach to play Baroque masterworks on the Great Organ — the largest church musical instrument with 20,000 pipes.
The free “Bach & the Mexican Baroque” program then follows at 11 a.m., including Bach’s “Wachet Auf” — which means “sleepers, awake” in German and is one of Bach’s most popular choral cantatas — but also the Spanish-language “Gloria” by Ignacio de Jerusalem and Manuel de Sumaya’s “Celebren publiquen” and “Para dar luz immortal.”
Multiple choirs, soloists and musicians will be conducted by David Harris, Ianthe Marini and Fahad Siadat.
Founded in 1867, the First Congregational Church focuses on progressive spirituality and justice, describing itself as “open and affirming, a home for people of many faith backgrounds, and a place where no one is turned away and everyone can believe as they choose and at their own pace.”
According to Musica Angelica, the entire festival in both LA and Long Beach offers a chance “to delve more deeply into Bach’s compositions, the motivations that surround them and the ethos that has developed since their creation.”
Musica Angelica musicians play on authentic or carefully crafted replicas of instruments from the Baroque period, including strings, woodwinds, harpsichords and lutes. Founded in 1992, the group has toured internationally and performed with both Long Beach Opera and LA Opera.
And though this is its third annual Bach Fest, the Bachanalian celebration has a long local history. The First Congregational Church had hosted an LA Bach Festival beginning in the 1930s, before the event spun off as its own organization in 2011. Musica Angelica then took over, returning the festival to the church, designed “for the connoisseur and beginner alike.”
Matthew Faulkner, Musica Angelica’s executive director, says, “The weekend promises to be enlightening, entertaining and emotional, providing the full range of experiences from one of our greatest composers.”
For tickets and information about the Friday night and Saturday and Sunday concerts in LA and Long Beach, visit musicaagnelica.org. Sunday’s music and service at the First Congregational Church of Los Angeles are free to the public.