BachWerkVocal IV was a complete success

The last concert of BachWerkVocal before the short summer break filled the Christuskirche in Salzburg with an excited audience. Karl Harb of the newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten was among them and wrote the above critic. Since the article is in English, here are some of his key statements:

Gordon Safari is not looking to create a musicphilologic encyclopaedia of kantatas, but lively, fresh music-making full of variety.
(…)
The solistic contributions of the Violin (in the a-Moll-Concert, BWV 1041), Cello (with marvelous agility) or Oboes provided many musical delicacies.
(…)
“whistling artist” Mechthild Kerz whistled the first part of the violin concert so enchantingly, even Loriots sketch-example ought to go green with envy.

It has been a great final concert to our first season! After a short break, BachWerkVocal will continue its line of concerts in autumn. The next dates will of course be announced on this website.

Flourishing church music scene in Salzburg

Karl Harb reported on April 3rd, about the currently flourishing choir- and church music scenes in Salzburg. Leading the charge: The protestant church Salzburg under musical direction of diocesan cantor Gordon Safari, offering many interesting projects ranging from “11Uhr11, “Cantorey Salzburg”, “Kleine Cantorey”, “Orgelpunkt”, all the way up to the large-scale project “BachWerkVocal”.

It’s done!

Heidemarie Klabacher, reporting for drehpunktkultur.at, has written a nice review and critic about the first performance of BachVerkVocal on April 26^th 2015. Here are some quotes (translated from the German original):

27/04/15 Interestedly and very curiously one entered the protestant Christuskirche on Sunday (26.4.) – and with inspired happiness left it a little shy of one and a half hours later. A cyclical performance of the whole Bach vocal works over the course of the next years? This more than ambitious endeavour of the new diocesan cantor Gordon Safari started off convincingly.
[…]
Under the precise direction of Gordon Safari and on the basis of the musically flexible Continuo of the Ensemble B@roqueB@nd, the vocalists could display their respective parts and solo arias virtuosically and at the same time, as homogeneous as a choral piece requires, merge smoothly with each other.
[…]
A promising start for this ambitious project. At the end, the choir, the ensemble and the conductor enchanted the crowd even a little more by swingingly and floatingly playing “Jesus bleibet meine Freude” from BWV 147 – and got everybody hooked with the invitation to sing the closing chorales together with the ensemble next time.

You can read the original article here (German)!