A six-concert 35th Anniversary 2012-2013 season places Bach in context among his contemporaries and includes both secular and sacred music, including the monumental summing-up of his life, the Mass in B Minor. The solo artistry of the orchestra and of J. Reilly Lewis himself is featured. In addition to crowd-pleasing favorites such as a Christmas concert, selections from Bach's Orchestral Suites and Brandenburg Concertos, and Handel's Fireworks Music, the Consort introduces lesser-known works of the Baroque.

Click here to subscribe to the full 2012--2013 35th Anniversary Season.

Noontime Cantata
Tuesday, May 7, 2013 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: Wer da glaubet und getauft wird, BWV 37
Organ: Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541
Soloist: William Neil

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

2013-2014 Season:
Subscriptions on Sale Now!

Call 202.429.2121 or click here to subscribe to the 36th season

Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.
Bach, Vivaldi, & the Italian Influence
Brilliant music by Bach, Vivaldi, and other baroque Italian composers

Sunday, November 3, 2013 at 3:00 p.m
The Concord of Heaven
All-Bach program of concertos, sonatas, and solo cantatas

Sunday, December 22, 2013 at 3:00 p.m.
Ceremony & Celebration: Christmas with the Consort
20th-Century Christmas music by John La Montaine and Benjamin Britten

Sunday March 16, 2014 at 3:00 p.m.
The St. John Passion
A dramatic representation rich in expressive immediacy of the Passion of Christ

Sunday, May 4, 2014 at 3:00 p.m.
Revolution and Evolution: The Music of C.P.E. Bach
An all-C.P.E. Bach program honoring the tricentennial of his birth

Single tickets go on sale August 1, 2013

National Presbyterian Church 4101 Nebraska Avenue NW Washington, DC 20016

Past Performances

Noontime Cantata
Tuesday, April 2, 2013 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: Bleib bei uns, denn es will Abend werden, BWV 6
Organ: Toccata and Fugue in F Major, BWV 540
Soloist: Eric Plutz

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

The B Minor Mass
Sunday, April 28, 2013 at 3 pm

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

Johann Sebastian Bach: Mass in B Minor, BWV 232

We end our 35th Season with the monumental Mass in B Minor, a work Bach returned to again and again during his life. Although it draws upon Lutheran and Catholic traditions the B Minor Mass holds deep significance for people of all religious and cultural origins. Bach scholar Christoph Wolff describes the B Minor Mass as “…a summary of his writing for voice, not only in its variety of styles, compositional devices, and range of sonorities, but also in its high level of technical polish ... Bach’s mighty setting preserved the musical and artistic creed of its creator for posterity.”

Featuring:
Agnes Zsigovics, soprano
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Steven Rickards, countertenor
Robert Petillo, tenor
Richard Giarusso, bass
Jon Bruno, bass

Noontime Cantata
Tuesday, March 5, 2013 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: Herr, gehe nicht ins Gericht, BWV 105
Organ: Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543
Soloist: Paul Skevington

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

Honor and Remembrance
Sunday, March 10, 2013 at 3 pm

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Motet: Der Gerechte kommt um
Brandenburg Concerto VI, BWV 1051
Funeral Ode: Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl, BWV 198
Heinrich Schütz: Musikalische Exequien, SWV 279-281

Rich sonority, sublime harmony, and complex instrumentation characterize this program that includes a deeply-felt funeral ode written to honor a beloved queen, and Schütz’s Exequien, a tribute to a friend and patron and one of the major works of the German choral repertoire before Bach. Bach himself looks back to the past with his arrangement of a motet originally attributed to his colleague Kuhnau, and the mood of reflection is carried over in the most introspective and somberly beautiful of the Brandenburg concertos.

Sopranos:
Katelyn Aungst, soprano
Chris Dudley, countertenor
John Wiggins, tenor
Scott Auby, bass

Bach for All Seasons
Sunday, February 17, 2013 at 3 pm

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

In honor of the 35th Season and by popular demand, music director and founder J. Reilly Lewis and National Presbyterian’s glorious Skinner organ star in an all-Bach program built around the “Great Eighteen Chorales,” BWV 651–668, begun in Bach’s youth in Weimar and revised in his final years in Leipzig. One of the most famous and diverse collection of organ pieces Bach ever wrote, these brilliant compositions represent a perfect fusion of styles and genres raised to new and unimagined artistic heights. Singers from the Consort chorus perform Bach’s exquisite harmonizations of the various melodies upon which these keyboard masterpieces are based.

Featuring: J. Reilly Lewis, organ

Noontime Cantata
Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 62
Organ: Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch, BWV 769
Soloist: Todd Fickley

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

Great Glad Tidings
Saturday, December 1, 2012 at 5 pm (note day and time).

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Cantata: Schwingt freudig euch empor, BWV 36
Cantata: Selig ist der Mann (Dialogus), BWV 57
Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch, BWV 769
Cantata: Ehre sei dir, Gott, gesumgen, BWV 248

An all-Bach program contains cantatas composed for Advent and the Christmas season, including one of the six that make up the Christmas Oratorio. J. Reilly Lewis performs the Canonic Variations on Vom Himmel hoch, one of Bach’s most famous compositions published towards the end of his life.

Soloists:
Robin Smith, soprano
Laura Choi Stuart, soprano
Ian Howell, countertenor
Robert Petillo, tenor
Richard Giarusso, bass
Steven Combs, bass

Noontime Cantata
Tuesday, November 6, 2012 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: Wir danken dir, Gott, BWV 29
Solo Violin Partita III in E Major, BWV 1006
Violin Soloist: Andrew Fouts

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

Noontime Cantata
October 2, 2012 at 12:10 p.m.

Cantata: O heilges Geist - und Wasserbad, BWV 165
Piano: French Suite V in G Major, BWV 816
Piano Soloist: J. Reilly Lewis

Church of the Epiphany
1317 G Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
click for location
FREE: NO TICKETS REQUIRED

The Virtuoso Bach
Sunday, November 4, 2012 at 3 pm

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

Johann Sebastian Bach:
Brandenburg Concerto II, BWV 1047
Cantata: Non sa che sia dolore, BWV 209
Sinfonia from Cantata 49
Organ Toccata in C Major, BWV 564
Triple Concerto, BWV 1044
Cantata: Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, BWV 51

Bach famously wrote that music is an agreeable harmony for the honor of God and the permissible delights of the soul. Allow your soul an afternoon of delight with an all-Bach program featuring some of the master's most virtuosic and challenging writing for solo soprano and instrumentalists. Concertmaster Andrew Fouts, principal trumpeter Josh Cohen and guest artist Elizabeth Futral, who performs two of Bach’s most brilliant Cantatas for solo soprano, join other superb performers in this showcase of musical treasures.

Featuring: Metropolitan opera star, soprano Elizabeth Futral.

Kings and Commoners
Sunday, September 23, 2012 at 3 pm.

National Presbyterian Church
4101 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20016
click for location

 

John Blow: God spake sometime in visions
William Boyce: The king shall rejoice
George Frideric Handel: My heart is inditing
Orlando Gibbons: Te Deum (The Second Service)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Election Cantatas Lobe den Herrn, meine Seele, BWV 69 and Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn, BWV 119

With the beginning of our 35th anniversary season coinciding with an electoral race, we take a look at music commissioned for state occasions. Handel’s anthem was written for the coronation of George II in 1727, when the Te Deum by Orlando Gibbons, who served kings of England over a century before, may also have been performed. Blow and Boyce wrote for James II and George III respectively, but it takes the genius of Bach to bestow grandeur fit for royalty on the inauguration of a town council.

Soloists:
Rebecca Kellerman Petretta, soprano
Kristen Dubenion-Smith, alto
Joseph Gaines, tenor
Jon Bruno, bass