Tag Archives: Bach Akademie Charlotte

Monteverdi Validated at Myers Park With Venetian Vespers

Review: Venetian Vespers with Bach Akademie Charlotte

By Perry Tannenbaum

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March 4, 2023, Charlotte, NC – You might gasp audibly upon learning that The Oxford Dictionary of Music proclaims that Claudio “Monteverdi’s place in the history of Renaissance music can justly be compared to Shakespeare’s in literature.” That high regard was echoed stateside by Ted Libbey in The NPR Listener’s Encyclopedia of Classical Music: “To paraphrase his contemporary Shakespeare, he bestrode the musical world like a colossus.” Yet many at the Myers Park Presbyterian Church; where Bach Akademie Charlotte presented their latest concert, Venetian Vespers conducted by Scott Allen Jarrett; were probably witnessing a live performance of Monteverdi’s music for the first time. Others had likely never heard Monteverdi anywhere but in church and/or on recordings in their entire lives.

As far as I can tell, the Renaissance colossus has never had a hearing at Belk Theater or Knight Theater in Charlotte. I’m fairly certain that my first live encounter with Monteverdi was at Spoleto Festival USA in 1991, when L’Incoronazione di Poppea was presented at Dock Street Theatre. Before then, my revelations had happened at local libraries in Columbia and Charlotte, where I could borrow and fall in love with vinyl recordings of Monteverdi’s Madrigals (there are nine books of them) followed by my discovery of L’Orfeo, the first masterpiece in opera history.

In keeping with the tone of the venues where Bach Akademie usually performs – and the liturgical spirit of their marquee composer – Jarrett, with a small chorus of six voices and an instrumental quintet, focused on two major sacred works that bookended Monteverdi’s career, his Vespro della Beata Vergine (1610) and his Selva morale e spiritual (1641). Sensing a general unfamiliarity with Monteverdi’s music and his importance, Jarrett spoke at length on both, stressing the cultural eminence of Venice at the peak of the Renaissance and Monteverdi’s towering influence over how composers would write for voice after he upended traditional practice by prioritizing text over music.

The texts that Bach Akademie performed were mostly scriptural and liturgical Latin, but Jarrett and his musicians also dipped into the “moral madrigals” found in the Selva collection, with Italian texts written by Francesco Petrarch and Angelo Grillo. In fact, Jarrett’s selections were admirably proportional to the original collections: we had twice as many excerpts from the Selva as we heard from the Vespro, and the Italian songs gave us a balanced representation of the larger collection, which on complete recordings is just over twice the size of the 1610 Vespers.

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We began and ended the concert with full ensemble pieces from the Selva, starting with “Laudate Dominum” (second version). Sopranos Margaret Carpenter Haigh and Arwen Myers blithely chimed the opening exhortation – “let us praise” – over and over, interspersed with full choral and instrumental passages, along with a couple of merry exchanges between tenors Nick Karageorgiou and i. Four of the six Selva selections were originally for accompaniment by two violins, slots ably filled by two mainstays of Boston’s exemplary Handel and Haydn Society, concertmaster Aisslinn Nosky and Fiona Hughes.

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Replacing the four trombones in the score as well as playing their own parts, Nosky and Hughes figured more prominently in the “Gloria” that followed Jarrett’s impressive disquisition. This larger-scaled composition also offered more opportunity for the vocalists to shine, the tenors declaiming the title word most often before the sopranos dominated with their filigree on the recurring “Domine.” Thanks to Jarrett’s intro, we were also on the lookout for the heavenly harmony lavished on the stately “peace on earth” passage, enriched by Edmund Milly’s bass-baritone, cellist Guy Fishman, and organist Nicolas Haigh.

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Accompanied solely by Deborah Fox on theorbo, Myers and Margaret Haigh gave us a marvelous first sampling of the Vespro, “Pulchra es,” set to two amorous verses from the Song of Solomon, delicately straddling the borderline between chastity and seduction as they sang from opposite sides of the chancel. Both sopranos rejoined the male vocalists as we returned to the Selva with “Laudate pueri” (first version). The men harmonized sweetly to launch this setting of Psalm 113 before the sopranos quickened the tempo and lifted the music to joy and jubilation.

I wondered how Jarrett and Bach Akademie planned to handle “Duo Seraphim,” the next Vespro selection, since it was written for three tenors, according to the program booklet, and the conductor deployed Karageorgiou and Wilson to opposite ends of the stage. Akademie’s artistic director must have also anticipated some suspense in the room, for it wasn’t until halfway through the piece that the third tenor walked to his place upstage, behind organist Nicolas Haigh – Milly, the bass! While Milly’s tessitura didn’t need to reach quite as high as the two other tenors’, he did quite well, actually sounding louder than his comrades on a few notes. Of course, there’s another way of construing the drama of Jarrett’s staging. At the exact point where the text departed momentarily from its familiar Isaiah 6 refrain, and the heavenly witnesses to the seraphs’ “Holy, holy, holy” call were cataloged as “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit,” Milly took his spot upstage before the three were said to be one.

Composed while Monteverdi was still in service to the Duke of Mantua, the “Dixit Dominus” for six voices and instruments seemed to be specially crafted for the acoustics of the Venetian Basilica of San Marco where he would later serve as the chapel maestro. John Eliot Gardner’s recording of the complete Vespro at San Marco with the English Baroque Soloists in 1986 implicitly made that point, and Jarrett, both in his introductory remarks and with the ensemble’s performance, made that point explicitly at Myers Park Presbyterian.

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Although she didn’t get much of the vocal spotlight, alto Laura Atkinson picked up a microphone to preface the remaining three Selva selections. Both of the poems that followed, written by Monteverdi for the other five voices, proved worthy of the pulpit, as their translated titles indicated: Petrarch’s “O blind ones! What use is all your toiling?” and Grillo’s “This life is a flash of lightning.” Reminding us that this was Bach Akademie and that the Charlotte Bach Festival is slated for its return on June 10-17 (if interim managing director Garrett Murphy’s fundraising goal is met), Jarrett and company gave us a small-scale preview of the plenty to come with Johann’s “Sanctus in D.” Not the swiftest version you’ll ever hear, but light, lively, and irresistible.

“Beatus vir” (first version), set to Psalm 112, was an apt finale to this Venetian Vespers concert, carrying forward the festive mood of the penultimate Bach with invigorating vocal counterpoint – Monteverdi writing here for six exactly voices at last – and providing Nosky and Hughes, as the two violinists also prescribed by the score, with their best opportunities to shine. But it wasn’t until the music slowed down, where the Psalmist spoke on the steadfastness of a god-fearing man in the face of evil tidings, that the finale became truly grand. The sheer massiveness of the sound summoned up the church to mix its harmonies, reminding us that we were in a house of worship.

L’Académie du Roi Soleil Unleashes Pent-Up Power in “Treacherous Love” Cantatas

Review: “L’Académie du Roi Soleil” at Tate Hall and the CPCC campus

By Perry Tannenbaum

Two baroque companies have risen to prominence over the past couple of seasons in Charlotte, different in size and scope but with obvious affinities. Over that span, the newer Bach Akademie Charlotte has performed two cantata series in Charlotte and nearby towns at various churches, now preparing to stage its second annual Charlotte Bach Festival in June. Not so high-profile, L’Académie du Roi Soleil has settled into Charlotte within the past year after a concert history that has traversed the Carolinas, with transoceanic excursions to Oxford and Cambridge, England.

While it’s possible that the Bach Akademie may branch out into works by Handel, Telemann and the French baroque masters in seasons to come, Académie has already planted its Gallic flag. Soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh and harpsichordist Nicolas Haigh, who co-founded Roi Soleil in 2013, have established themselves as Bach Akademie mainstays as well. In their return to Tate Hall and the CPCC campus, Roi Soleil continued to emphasize the Sun King in their program.

Or should I say “Programme”? For in their terminology, their typeface, and in their performances, L’Académie proved that they have a style of their own. Starting their presentation at 12:30 PM, however, wasn’t a new wrinkle, for midday concerts are fairly routine at both the Oregon and Charlotte Bach Festivals. In fact, when L’Académie performed Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres at Tate last March, that concert was also a midweek lunchtime event. Fewer Francophiles were likely to be as familiar with this year’s lineup, which included Jean-Féry Rebel, Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de la Guerre, Louis-Nicolas Clérambault – and a devastating theme: “Treacherous Love, Passion and Vengeance in 18^th Century France.”

Giving Margaret Haigh the opportunity to make a solo entrance, Michael Haigh and Roi’s two string musicians, violinist Cynthia Black and viola da gamba player Gail Anne Schroeder, began the afternoon with Jean-Féry Rebel’s Violin Sonata No. 5. One of Louis XIV’s “24 violons du Roi,” Rebel came across as a blithe spirit in my first brush with the composer’s work. Especially in the third Viste movement, Rebel offered Black ample opportunities to impress with her vitality and virtuosity. In the opening movement, where Viste was just the first of three tempo markings – with a middle Grave section providing contrast – Black displayed the richness of her tone almost immediately. Nor was there any inwardness or solemnity in the Sarabande that followed, where the trio’s sound remained sweet instead of sad. After the exhilarating pace of the penultimate Viste, the final Gigue slowed down noticeably but remained joyously danceable.

When she emerged to perform the two cantatas on the bill, Margaret Haigh did not dwell on Jacquet de la Guerre’s gender in introducing her Semelé. Unlike Handel’s opera, which expands upon Ovid’s 53 lines on Semele in The Metamorphoses – with a libretto by William Congreve! – Jacquet’s cantata actually condensed Ovid’s original, so Haigh and the program booklet were obliged to fill us in on the backstory, where the Roman goddess Juno, jealous of her husband Jupiter’s love for Semele, disguises herself as the human maiden’s nursemaid and convinces her that she must get proof from Jupiter of his divinity. Here is where Jacquet began, sending her soprano onstage to tell us that Jupiter had rashly sworn to grant Semele anything she desired before she surprised him with her wish. The rules are the same as they were in the Old Testament: humans who view the face of god must die.

From then on, Haigh became Semelé, anticipating Jupiter’s arrival and – amid mighty displays of lightning – chiding herself for her doubts. Haigh’s best moments came when Semelé’s triumph was at hand and in her ensuing immolation. Jacquet gave the instrumental accompaniment an emphatic pulse here that the musicians picked up on, and Haigh took it upon herself to dramatize Semelé’s giddy vainglory, acquiring a strength in her “Quel triomphe, quelle Victoire” air we hadn’t heard earlier. For both Handel and Jacquet add on a sexy spice to Ovid’s narrative, a hint the Semele aspires to become a goddess herself if Jupiter couples with her in the way he would with Juno. “Je vais joüir de sort des dieux!” she exults. She will enjoy the lot of the gods.

Jacquet has her bragging that she knew how to please Jupiter, and Haigh reveled in repeating those hubristic vaunts. Our heroine’s fall is pretty steep in the ensuing recitative, and Haigh was suitably vulnerable, surprised, and pathetic in describing her own destruction. Haigh then reverted to her previous role as Jacquet’s narrator, drawing a moral that tenderness and warmth should be what we ask of love rather than blazing fire and glory. No wonder, then, that there’s no mention that Semele’s pregnancy incited Juno’s jealousy or that Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, would be her son.

In Clérambault’s Médée, no such restraints applied. After an introductory recitative, Haigh could immerse herself in the wickedly vengeful queen and stay there. Yet Clérambault humanized his Medea more than we might expect if we’re familiar with the vengeance Euripides ascribed to her in his ancient Greek tragedy. Taking his cue from the Golden Fleece narrative of the Argonautica, the Frenchman ignored the more fiendish aspect of Euripides’ storyline, when Medea kills Jason’s – and her own – sons. Clérambault concentrates instead on Médée’s ruminations before she kills Glauce, the Corinthian royal that her husband has abandoned her for. Where Euripides had Medea pausing to consider before slaying her own children, Clérambault had her pausing before murdering Jason, remembering how much she once loved him, and deciding to vent her rage on her rival.

Without needing to revert to her narrative role, without a particle of self-pity, and with the support of demons that Médée rabidly summons from hell, Haigh could be even more manic and powerful. Haigh seemed to revel in the give-and-take, the tender moments of fond memories giving way to fury, resolve, and exultation. Clérambault’s score also gave the musicians greater latitude to vent their energies. Before Médée called upon the demon jealousy, “Cruelle fille des enfers (Cruel daughter of hell),” Nicolas Haigh pounded a march-like intro on the keyboard, so when Margaret Haigh sang out, casting her spell, it was like Médée was giving the demons their marching orders.

There would be no neat moralizing here. After a recitative confirming that Médée’s father, the sun god Helios, had favored her cause, Black’s violin feverishly cued the “Volés, Démons, volés! (Fly, demons, fly!)” finale. Haigh sounded fully aware that she didn’t need to save herself for anything afterwards, and this was one of those times when Tate Hall couldn’t contain the power of her voice. Even when she was done venting and raging, the fury of Médée’s vengeful wickedness continued in Black’s violin, leaving us with the feeling that we had just witnessed the unleashing of an awesome elemental force.

A Bach Big Bang Hits the QC

Preview: Charlotte Bach Festival

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By Perry Tannenbaum

Bach celebrations aren’t totally alien to the Queen City. Charlotte Symphony played with the idea for a few years at Knight Theater with Bachtoberfest, pairing Bach and beer, preferably bock. BachFests have bloomed annually – if only for a day – at St. Alban’s Episcopal in nearby Davidson; and last March, the North Carolina Bach Festival landed modestly for one evening at the Steinway Piano Gallery on the outskirts of town.

None of these foretold the Bach Big Bang that begins this Saturday. The first annual Charlotte Bach Festival splashes down with eight concerts in nine days – predominantly in the QC but in churches ranging from Gastonia to Winston-Salem. Unlike the Bachtoberfest brew, which might mix in some Mozart and Wagner, Charlotte Bach kicks off with an all-Johann Sebastian lineup.

And unlike the chamber offerings at St. Alban’s and Steinway, Charlotte Bach is mostly big Bach: multiple cantatas, a trumpeting Orchestral Suite, a motet, and the mighty B Minor Mass. Ambitions are not at all small at Bach Akademie Charlotte, the non-profit producing company that sprouted up last October – at St. Alban’s with two cantatas and a motet – with no word about the Big Bang to come.

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Plans are not only firmly in place to stage Charlotte Bach annually but also to possibly grow the festival to a third weekend. That would put a fully-bloomed QC festival in the same elite class as the Oregon Bach Festival, the Big Kahuna among Bach fests in America.

Seeds for this astonishing phenomenon were first planted late in 2013, when Charlotte Symphony presented Bach’s St. Matthew Passion under the direction of Scott Allen Jarrett. Singing tenor with the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte at these sacred concerts, Mike Trammell had an epiphany: this was what he wanted to do in life.

“Bach always makes you look beyond the page,” says Trammell, “and I was captivated by the context of the piece – the history, the texts chosen, and its structure of arias, recits, and chorales. I finally found some classical music that I could connect with beyond the way it sounded to my ear.”

But to live by singing Bach in Charlotte – the land of Speedweeks, tailgate parties, and b-ball?? Of course, not. So he went off and sang Bach in Stuttgart and then Weimar with Helmuth Rilling, the revered conductor and choirmaster who founded Oregon Bach in 1971.

Eventually, Trammell got to thinking, why not Charlotte? With other like-minded locals, he founded the Bach Akademie Charlotte, and then he reached out to Jarrett to become its first artistic director.

“You have to hear Scott speak on Bach,” says Trammell, “and you have to hear what he does with the music for me to tell you why he’s the best. He’s recognized by his peers as a leading Bach scholar in the country. He knows our city, he knows our people – he speaks our language and the language of Bach.”

Trammell flew up to Boston to make his Bach Akademie pitch to Jarrett. Getting Jarrett to sign on was the key to bringing what Trammell calls a “rockstar” staff aboard, including Adam Romey, the Festival’s managing director. Romey’s mom is Rilling’s longtime assistant, and his grandfather helped Helmut in founding Oregon Bach. 20170810_Bard_TONE_SM_418_Touch_UP

No doubt Jarrett helped in selling Romey on Charlotte. A native of Virginia who went to college at Furman University, Jarrett was already at home in the region when he served as assistant conductor at Charlotte Symphony from 2004 to 2015 and music director for the Oratorio Singers.

“So it was a real happy 11 years working for the Oratorio and the Symphony, coming weekly to Charlotte for more than a decade,” says Jarrett. “I find the spirit behind people wanting to do this music is really thrilling, and I think it’s brilliant for [the Bach festival] to be in Charlotte. Charlotte is a perfect place for it!”

It’s doubtful that anything less than a Bach festival aspiring to national prominence could have lured Jarrett back.

Down in Miami, Jarrett was the first guest conductor to lead the Seraphic Fire ensemble, contributing to their Grammy-nominated recording of Brahms’ Requiem in 2012. Up in Boston, he is resident conductor of the Handel + Haydn Society, and music director of the Back Bay Chorale. At Boston University, he is director of music at Marsh Chapel, where weekly Sunday services are broadcast live. He has also piloted a Bach cantata series at the University for the past 12 years. ©Michael J.Lutch _May 10, 2017_150.jpg

More importantly, Jarrett brings more precious DNA to our budding festival from the Oregon Bach Festival, where he has been a fixture since 2010. Last year, he kicked off the season conducting the Matthew Passion, making him the only person besides Rilling ever entrusted with that masterwork. This season at Oregon, he presides over another Rilling preserve, the Discovery Series, a unique set of lecture-demonstration concerts that take listeners inside the craftsmanship and the theology of the music.

Here in Charlotte, it will be called The Bach Experience – as it has been on Jarrett’s home turf at Boston U. The two themed concerts, “Summer in Leipzig,” will be offered at Myers Park United Methodist Church next Tuesday and Thursday at 12:30pm. Jarrett has chosen Cantata 75, “Die Elenden sollen essen” (“The Hungry Shall Eat”), and Cantata 76, “Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes” (“The Heavens Are Telling the Glory of God”), to take us back to 1723 and Bach’s first two weeks of work as cantor of the St. Thomas Church in Leipzig.

Jarrett, the Akademie | Charlotte Cantata Choir, the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra, singers from the Akademie’s Emerging Artist program, and special guests will all be upfront performing – and demonstrating. Besides the quality of the singers and musicians, who hail from as far away as California and Canada, Jarrett is enthused about the caliber of the QC’s audience.

“One of the things that always inspired me about Charlotte is that people here go to Sunday school, they are interested in learning,” Jarrett declares. “It’s not like they go to a concert to get their card punched. They want to know why the music matters. They want to know what the music has to say. And basically, they are curious people, and this is the perfect music for them!”

Festivities are bookended by two blockbuster concerts, leading off with the Festival Opening Celebration on Saturday evening at Christ Church Charlotte on Providence Road. Ordinarily, you don’t expect the trumpeting of Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 1 to be upstaged. This time, the brassy suite might be less dominant than usual, flanked by the “Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied” (“Sing to the Lord a New Song”) motet, which Jarrett describes as the “Brandenburg Concerto for voices,” and the Cantata 147, which includes the beloved “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” – twice.

“That cantata is very dear to me,” Jarrett confides. “It’s one of the first cantatas I ever heard and learned, and Bach has a wonderful concertante opening movement with voices and trumpet, a real brilliant feature for voices and players.”

The closing concert in Charlotte on the following Saturday, June 16 at Myers Park Presbyterian, is simply called The Masterwork – because Jarrett can find no words to overpraise the monumental B Minor Mass. Both the opening and closing concerts get Sunday afternoon encores that will expand the Charlotte Bach Festival’s reach. The Opening Celebration travels to First United Methodist in Gastonia this coming Sunday, and The Masterwork journeys to Centenary United Methodist in Winston-Salem on June 17.

At the other end of the Bach spectrum, the Leipzig cantor is the unchallenged master of solo works written for violin, cello, and organ. The Visiting Artist Recital Series at the Charlotte festival checks that Bach box as well. Highlighting the series, Bálint Karosi reigns at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on Friday, June 16, when he will give the new Fisk organ a workout – with pieces inspired by Bach’s name, written by Schumann, Liszt, and others.

Two kings collide as Karosi, a Hungaraton recording artist and winner of the 2008 International J.S. Bach Competition, displays his skills on the king of instruments.

But don’t skip Guy Fishman, principal cellist of the Handel + Haydn Society, who comes to Christ Church Charlotte next Monday evening to play selected Bach Cello Suites. There won’t be many quiet moments when the Bach Big Bang hits Charlotte, but this will be among the most beautiful.

“He is an Israeli-American musician,” Jarrett points out, “and just one of the most extraordinary cellists that I’ve ever met, and I’m so grateful to be able to work with him often.”

For tickets and full details, go to bachcharlotte.com.

The Queen City Has a Regal New Bach Festival to Call Its Own

Review: Charlotte Bach Festival~Opening Celebration

By Perry Tannenbaum

Boasting unmistakable DNA from the Oregon Bach Festival, at the podium and in its administrative offices, the new Bach Akademie Charlotte has launched its first annual Charlotte Bach Festival in grand style, heralding national ambitions. The Festival Opening Celebration filled the chapel at Christ Church Charlotte with listeners eager to hear Bach’s vocal music performed by a professional choir and to see Johann Sebastian’s orchestral music played on authentic baroque instruments. Conducted by Scott Allen Jarrett, the combined forces of the Akademie’s Cantata Choir and the North Carolina Baroque Orchestra obliged, filling the room with robust, cleanly sculpted sound. All hands were on deck for Cantata 147, “Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben” including guest instrumentalists and vocalists. This centerpiece was preceded by the Orchestra Suite No. 1 in C Major, where we made the acquaintance of the fullest assembly of the NC Baroque Orchestra that I’ve ever seen. Concluding the concert, the “Singet demrrn ein neues Lied” motet showcased the Choir with light accompaniment from keyboardist Nicolas Haigh, violone player Sue Yelanjan, and NC Baroque executive director, cellist Barbara Krumdieck.

Jarrett is not merely a guest conductor at Oregon Bach Festival. He directs the Vocal Fellows Program there, and he is slated to deliver the lecture concerts of their Discovery Series this summer. Adam Romey, the new managing director, is the son of Kathy Romey, longtime assistant of OBF founder Helmuth Rilling; and the Bach Akademie president, Michael H. Trammell, has sung with Rilling at festival in Europe. In welcoming the audience and in introducing the pieces, Jarrett reminded me of how Helmuth Rilling engaged his OBF audiences when he was artistic director there. He isn’t as sparing, concise, gnomic, or orotund as Charlotte Symphony’s Christopher Warren-Green in making his remarks. There is a more relaxed informality and a gentle pedagogical touch. Jarrett didn’t walk off into the wings between pieces and, since he had served as music director of the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte from 2004 to 2015, he could address us with a familiarity that must have taken Rilling years to achieve in Eugene, Oregon.

Intimacy between the audience and the musicians was sustained by the compact size of the ensembles, a mere 14 musicians taking the stage for the Orchestral Suite. Yet it did not take long for these members of NC Baroque to prove they could produce a roar in the opening Ouverture movement. Deceptively stately, for the oboes are doubling and quadrupling the pace with embellishments, the movement is far longer than any one of those that follow, with a slow-fast-slow-fast-slow structure that is most satisfying when the tempo contrasts are emphatic. Not only were the wind players on point – oboists Margaret Owens and Sung Lee backed by bassoonist Allen Hamrick – but the string players, led by concertmaster Martha Perry, were also up to the task, sounding effortless in the swift episodes. There was a nice balance later on in the Gavotte movements when strings and winds veered off in different directions and a delicious blend afterwards between the sections in the Menuets. The paired Bourées were also impressive, the strings showing their nimbleness in the fleet outer portions of this movement and, in the middle, Owens and Sung interweaving nicely over Hamrick’s continuo.

Glorious was a better description of the Cantata 147 performance than merely impressive, for all of the forces at Jarrett’s command were at their shining best – and the music includes the familiar “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” one of Bach’s greatest hits, played twice to conclude each of its two parts. Here Josh Cohen made his first appearance with his valveless natural trumpet, launching the cantata with some stunning flourishes. Most of the vocal soloists were drawn from the Charlotte Cantata Choir, underscoring the fact that Jarrett has chosen the crème de la crème of Charlotte’s plentiful choral talent. I was most delighted by Edmund Milly’s renditions of the bass recitative (“Stubbornness can blind the mighty”) and the bass aria in the penultimate song (“I shall sing of Jesus’ miracles”), both ringing with power and authority, yet there was also considerable power from soprano Margaret Carpenter Haigh in her aria (“Prepare now, O Jesus, the way”).

With native talent of that caliber, the imports figured to be outstanding, and they were. Countertenor Charles Humphries was definitely a highlight in the alto aria (“Be not ashamed, O soul”), with a lovely obbligato from Owens over Hamrick’s bassline. Tenor Patrick Muehleise had the earnest warmth that his aria demanded (“Help me, Jesus, to acknowledge Thee”), giving Krumdieck, who is so often relegated to continuo at local concerts, a chance to show her true mettle in the cello obbligato. Among the obbligatos, I don’t think any outshone the paired oboes of Owens and Sung behind alto Elizabeth Eschen’s sweet recitative (“The wondrous hand of God’s omnipotence”). For sheer luminosity, however, nothing could compare with the live performances of the “Jesu” movements, numbers 6 (“I am blest to have Jesus”) and 10 (“Jesus remains my joy”). The familiar melody is played by the orchestra, but it’s the stately choral singing that elevates the music heavenward. Which melody is accompanying the other? Part of what nearly brought me to tears, besides the sheer beauty of the performance, were the realizations of how rarely such music is heard in a live concert and the foretaste of how much this new festival could mean to this community. Jarrett delivered an additional foretaste in his introduction to this cantata, explaining its architecture, a glimpse of what he would be doing later in the Festival when will clone his work at OBF’s Discovery Series and bring it Charlotte as The Bach Experience, exploring and then performing Cantatas 75 and 76 at Myers Park United Methodist Church in separate midday concerts.

Concluding the Opening Celebration, the Cantata Choir sounded relaxed and celebratory in their motet after scaling to the pinnacle of this concert. Jarrett didn’t let up on the ensemble in the opening movement (“Sing a new song to the Lord”), calling for a slightly brisker tempo than I’ve usually heard, and I’ve certainly encountered more hushed and reverent accounts of the choruses in the middle movement. Yet there was still a definite éclat when the ensemble lit into the final “Lobet den Herrn in seinen Taten” (“Praise the Lord in His works”), similar to the opening movement in its ecumenical return to the mother of us all, the Psalms of the Old Testament. Once more, Jarrett and the Choir accelerated with effortless speed, producing satisfying layers of melody, rich textures and counterpoint, building to what many people would call a cathedral of sound. Less pretentious folk could simply – and rightly – call this concert a grand opening.