Basically Bach
Saturday, September 27 at 7:30PM
Central Lutheran Church
1420 Cordova St., Anchorage, AK
Featuring the AFM Baroque Ensemble:
Jonathan Salzedo, harpsichord
Laura Koenig, baroque flute
Dawn Lindsay, violin
John Lutterman, cello and viola da gamba
Celebrating Anchorage’s rich musical past
Our Platinum Anniversary season opens with a salute to Anchorage’s Basically Bach Festival of the 1970s and 1980s, a parent organization of today’s Anchorage Festival of Music. This concert features pieces from Basically Bach’s original programs juxtaposed with intriguing trivia, reminiscences, and projected historical images.
Hear great music from the renaissance through baroque eras and learn about (or remember) a seminal and somewhat spicy chapter of Anchorage’s musical history.
The program includes selections from J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Musical Offering, a Handel trio sonata with bird calls, and Basically Bach’s signature “Bach Singspiel” that invites the audience to group-sing Bach chorales. All pieces will be performed on period instruments. As an extra layer of authenticity, we return to one of Basically Bach’s original venues. Here we will showcase our beautiful double-manual harpsichord, inherited from the Basically Bach Festival
The Great Anchorage Music Festival Schism
For twenty years the Alaska (née Anchorage) Festival of Music was Anchorage’s premiere and only annual music festival that blended internationally acclaimed guest artists with Alaskan musicians. In 1976, Elvera Voth organized a set of early music concerts as part of Anchorage’s “Friday at 8” arts series. The enthusiastic response inspired Voth and Roy Helms (Executive Director for the Alaska State Council on the Arts) to create the Basically Bach Festival, an annual two-week event featuring music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. This focus on early music was originally intended to complement AFM’s classical and romantic emphasis, but the two organizations soon fell into direct and sometimes acrimonious competition over precious financial and human resources. As personalities clashed and financial uncertainty hit both organizations, the solution came in the form of a 1986 merger and rebranding as Anchorage Festival of Music, the original name from 1956.
This event is made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Atwood Foundation.
