Oregon Bach Festival, Eugene (July 2018)
A wonderful two weeks in Oregon premiering one work and exploring the height of oratorio, Elijah with conductors JoAnn Falletta and John Nelson, prepared by Kathy Romey.
I just finished my time singing in Eugene with the Oregon Bach Festival for the first time. There were two wonderful performances in the Hult Center with talented soloists and demanding conductors.
The Passion of Yeshua, Richard Danielpour. Conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Silva Concert Hall, Eugene, OR, 8 July, 2018.
The first week we put together the premiere of Richard Danielpour's The Passion of Yeshua with conductor JoAnn Falletta and soloists J'Nae Bridges, Kenny Overton, Sarah Shafer, Matthew Worth, Tim Fallon, and fellow chorister Edmund Milly. Mr. Danielpour's concept was to place Jesus' death squarely in context of His Jewishness and the recognition that He lived and died with the rituals associated with Judaism. Thus, the choir's text was mostly set in Hebrew and the Last Supper was celebrated in the context of the Passover Seder. Here is the review that appeared in the Eugene papers about our performance. Particularly of note was how the chorus I was a part of was lauded for our sensitivity and diction as prepared by the inimitable Kathy Romey.
L to R: David Mann, Christopher Gilliam, Rebecca Blackwell, Blake Beckemeyer (me)
The second week featured a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah, conducted by John Nelson. Mae. Nelson was intimately familiar with the work and brought an operatic and dramatic bent to Elijah's life story. Overshadowing the performance was touching personal issues that made the performance more special for all those involved. During the last fugal chorus "Lord our Creator..." there were not only wet eyes in the audience, but my friends, me, and John Nelson were also counted among them.
Bach Cantata Academy, Weimar (August 2017)
Collection of videos and reflections on my trip to Weimar, Erfurt, Eisenach, and Leipzig, Germany this summer for the 4th Annual Weimar Bach Cantata Academy with Helmuth Rilling and Kathy Romey.
I was lucky enough in August to travel to Weimar, Germany for a series of concerts with Helmuth Rilling, coached by Kathy Romey. As my first summer exploring Bach in detail, I feel like his style comes much more easily and I have found a true love for his music when it is done to its fullest. The hardest part was learning the articulatory precision that makes this man come alive. We would spend hours in rehearsal marking which phrases had eighth note cutoffs, which phrases demanded which sequence of staccato and connected singing. I have never in my life heard so many distinctions of separation (non-legato, marcato, portato, staccato, articulated legato, etc). As much as it was an education in style, it was an education in focus, attention to detail, and rehearsal efficiency.
The first four concerts were lecture concerts in the Stadtkirche in downtown Weimar. The examples were rehearsed in advance with unusual precision in their starting and stopping, and moreover Maestro often added and deleted right up until the lecture as he honed his ideas on how to present the cantata. Here is the first Gesprächkonzert of the festival of Cantata 63 "Christen, ätzet diesen Tag."
The other Gesprächkonzert videos are of Cantata 65 "Sie werden aus Saba kommen"
Cantata 31 "Der Himmel Lacht", and Cantata 11 "Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen".
While preparing for the lecture concerts, we also gave a choral concert in the Erfurt-Dom, the gigantic cathedral in Erfurt, a nearby city that Bach visited during his lifetime. I had a solo in the Schütz "Der Herr ist mein Hirt." The piece begins at 26:46.
After all of this, singing at Bach's baptismal font and also his grave completed an experience that drives me to explore deeper his Passions and his other vocal works (which I will do in my Honors Scholar Thesis this academic year). This opportunity makes me appreciate these scholars who have popularized and preserved Bach's legacy in making him arguably the greatest composer who has ever lived. Here is our review (aber auf Deutsch) of our concert in Leipzig.
Concert of 3 Cantatas in front of Bach's Baptismal Font in the Georgenkirche Eisenach.