The Bach Choir and Orchestra will present Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cantata 137: “Lobe den Herren” at Bach Vespers on Sunday, May 16, at 5:00 p.m. Also on the program are “Gottes Gabe - Täglich Brot” by Erhard Mauersberger, “The Beatitudes” by the Estonian minimalist Arvo Pärt, and “Das grosse Abendmahl” by Johannes Weyrauch.
Guest director Dr. Dale Voelker, is chair of the music department at Judson College and director of the Washington Kantorei, a chamber choir in northern Virginia which he founded. Dr. Voelker earned a diploma at the Westphalian Church Music School in Herford, Germany, where he studied with renowned Bach and Schütz specialist Wilhelm Ehmann.
The reception following the Vespers will honor Dr. Robert Lynn, music director of the Bach Society since its founding in 1982.
Dr. Lynn Retires from Bach Society Leadership
The Bach Society announces with regret the retirement of Musical Director Robert Lynn - organist, harpsichordist, musicologist - whose exemplary musical leadership we have enjoyed for 22 years.
In the beginning Dr. Lynn recruited all the members of the Bach Choir and an orchestra and set about creating the sound he wanted. The first Bach Vespers took place in the fall of 1982. Since then he has brought much pleasure and no doubt much growth to our congregation with myriad high-caliber presentations of much of the finest music in the Lutheran tradition. The Bach Choir has sung Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Magnificat, B-minor Mass, motets, cantatas by the dozen; Mozart’s Solemn Vespers; Schütz’s Christmas Story. Notably, some of the music had never before been performed in Houston. The Bach Choir and Orchestra under Dr. Lynn’s leadership have reaped widespread recognition in the community as well as critical acclaim.
After his retirement from the faculty of the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, and from the organist/choirmaster post at St. Francis Episcopal Church, he willingly gave himself over to a wider range of pursuits for the benefit of the Bach Society. He made several trips to Germany in search of unpublished works by composers in the Bach tradition, cultivated contacts and exchanged manuscripts and research with musicians abroad, and led an educational/performing tour of Bach sites in Germany with the Bach Choir. With considerable effort he secured first-performance rights for a rediscovered St. Matthew Passion by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and led two remarkable premiere presentations of that work (April, 2002) with the Bach Choir and Orchestra, including one for the American Bach Society. That work remains unpublished and has been performed by only four musical organizations in the world.